Guatemalan woman who lives and works on Vermont dairy farm gets immigration reprieve — for now
'Sí se puede,' Bernardo said. 'And united we stand strong.'
According to her attorney, Brett Stokes, ICE agents told her Monday that she was free for now, but that she must return again in 90 days.
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For more than a decade, Bernardo and her partner have lived and worked on an Orleans County dairy farm, milking cows and raising a growing family. They have five children of their own and take care of two of Bernardo's orphaned half-sisters — all between the ages of 5 and 18.
Bernardo entered the country without permission in 2014 and was immediately apprehended, according to Stokes. She has had to check in with ICE officials ever since, but those appointments have grown more frequent — and more fraught — since President Donald Trump took office vowing to deport a record number of undocumented people.
Bernardo's case has drawn significant attention in Vermont over the years, with dozens of state lawmakers
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'I consider them more than just employees,' he told the Globe. 'They're part of the family.'
Morin and his partner, Lynn Beede, drove Bernardo and two of her children to Monday's meeting. After she addressed the crowd of supporters, Morin said he was filled with 'relief and happiness.'
'I'm glad for her family and for everybody,' he said. 'The outcome was good today, but it's not over yet.'
Bernardo was not the only Vermonter facing a nerve-wracking check-in Monday morning.
Steven Tendo, a pastor and community organizer who fled his native Uganda in 2018, entered the building alongside Bernardo for a similar appointment with ICE officials. He was also released and told to return in 90 days.
Tendo, 40, has said that he faced political persecution and torture in Uganda after a charitable organization he founded tangled with the Ugandan government over its civic education efforts,
In 2019, a federal immigration judge denied Tendo's application for asylum, citing inconsistencies around aspects of his story. After spending more than two years in a federal immigration detention center in Texas, he relocated to Vermont, where he lives in Colchester. He now works as a licensed nursing assistant at the University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington.
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Members of a union that represents him and other hospital workers, Support Staff United, were among the protesters who joined Monday's rally for Tendo and Bernardo.
'It's a huge relief to know that you've left your bed not thinking that you're going to go back,' Tendo said after leaving his appointment. 'And all of the sudden someone tells you, 'Oh, you're OK for the next three months. Come back in October.''
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Yahoo
34 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Latino tenants sued their landlord. A lawyer told them they would be "picked up by ICE."
In her entire law career, Sarah McCracken has never seen anything like the email she received on June 25. McCracken, a tenants' rights lawyer at Tobener Ravenscroft, is currently representing a Latino family suing a landlord and real estate agent for illegal eviction after being kicked out of their Baldwin Park home last year. A few weeks after being served, amid a series of ICE raids primarily targeting Latino communities in L.A. County, Rod Fehlman, the lawyer who appeared to be representing the agent at the time, sent McCracken's team a series of emails disputing the lawsuit and urging them to drop the case. He ended the correspondence with this: "It is also interesting to note that your clients are likely to be picked up by ICE and deported prior to trial thanks to all the good work the Trump administration has done in regards to immigration in California." "It's racist," McCracken said. "Not only is it unethical and probably illegal, but it's just a really wild thing to say — especially since my clients are U.S. citizens." The comment arrived as ICE raises tensions between landlords and Latino tenants. According to California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, ICE has been pressuring some landlords to report their tenants' immigration status. Bonta's office issued a consumer alert on Tuesday reminding landlords that "it is illegal in California to discriminate against tenants or to harass or retaliate against a tenant by disclosing their immigration status to law enforcement." Fehlman didn't respond to requests for comment, nor did the clients he seemed to be representing: real estate agent David Benavides and brokerage Majesty One Properties, Inc. Fehlman's role in the case is unclear; following requests for comment from The Times, Benavides and the brokerage responded to McCracken's complaint using a different law firm. But according to McCracken, Fehlman serves as the defendants' personal attorney and will likely still take part in the lawsuit in an advisory role. Evicted From 2018 to 2024, Yicenia Morales rented a two-bedroom condo in Baldwin Park, which she shared with her husband, three children and grandson. According to her wrongful eviction lawsuit filed in May, the house had a slew of problems: faulty electricity, leaks in the bathroom, bad ventilation, and a broken heater, air-conditioning unit and garage door. "There was a lot that needed to be fixed, but we accepted it because we were just happy to find a place to live," Morales said. The real problems started in 2024, when her landlord, Celia Ruiz, started asking the family to leave because she wanted to sell the property, which isn't a valid reason for eviction under California law or Baldwin Park's Just Cause Eviction Ordinance, the suit said. According to the lawsuit, Ruiz then changed her story, alleging that she wanted to move into the house herself, which would be a valid reason for eviction. According to the suit, Ruiz and her real estate agent, David Benavides of Majesty One Properties, constantly urged Morales and her family to leave. In September, the pressure mounted. Ruiz penned a handwritten note saying she needed the house back, and Benavides began calling them almost every day, the suit said. In November, assuming Ruiz needed to move back in, Morales left. But instead of moving in herself, Ruiz put the property on the market in January and sold it by March. "I really believed she needed the house for herself," Morales said. "I'm just tired of people taking advantage of others." Lawyer tactics Depending on your interpretation of California's Business and Professions Code, Fehlman's comment could be illegal, McCracken said. Section 6103.7 says lawyers can be suspended, disbarred or disciplined if they "report suspected immigration status or threaten to report suspected immigration status of a witness or party to a civil or administrative action." In addition, the State Bar of California bans lawyers from threatening to present criminal, administrative or disciplinary charges to obtain an advantage in a civil dispute. You could argue that Fehlman's email isn't a threat. He never said he'd call ICE himself, only claiming that Morales and her family "are likely to be picked up by ICE and deported." Morales and her entire family are all U.S. citizens. But she said she feels racially profiled because of her last name. "It's not fair for him to take advantage of that," she said. "I was born here. I have a birth certificate. I pay taxes." Just to be safe, Morales sent her birth certificates to McCracken's team. Even though she's a citizen, if Fehlman reports her to ICE, she still doesn't feel safe. Federal agents have arrested U.S. citizens during its recent raids across L.A, and a 2018 investigation by The Times found that ICE has arrested nearly 1,500 U.S. citizens since 2012, detaining some for years at a time. "I was already depressed over the eviction. Now I'm hurt, embarrassed and nervous as well. Will he really call ICE on us?" Morales said. McCracken said Fehlman's message is a byproduct of the current anti-immigrant political environment. Fehlman sent the email on June 25, the end of a jarring month that saw the agency arrest 2,031 people across seven counties in Southern California, 68% of which had no criminal convictions. "People seem to be emboldened to flout the law because they see people at the top doing it," she said. "It's totally unacceptable behavior." An ironic twist, she added, is that Fehlman's own client at the time was also Latino. "I don't know if Benavides was aware that his lawyer is making racially profiling comments, but I don't think he'd want to work with someone like that," McCracken said. The case is still in its early stages. Benavides and Majesty One Properties responded to the complaint on July 17, and McCracken's team hasn't officially served the landlord Ruiz yet because they've been unable to locate her. In the wake of the ICE comment, communication between McCracken and Fehlman halted. McCracken decided Fehlman's rant and possible threat didn't warrant a response, and Fehlman hasn't said anything else in the meantime. Her team is still deciding how they want to proceed in the wake of the comment, which could justify legal action. She called it a dangerous attempt to chill her client's speech and a failed attempt to intimidate her into dropping the case. But he took it way too far. "We're at a point in time where lawyers need to be upholding the rule of law," she said. "Especially in a time like this." Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. Solve the daily Crossword
The Intercept
41 minutes ago
- The Intercept
Feds Criminalize Aiding Protests Against ICE
Speaking on Fox News last week, a top official from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the agency was expanding its dragnet for arrests. 'I think we all know that criminals tend to hang out with criminals,' ICE Deputy Director Madison Sheahan said. 'And so when we start to build a case, we're going to be going after everyone that's around them. Because these criminals tend to hang out with like-minded people who also happen to be criminals.' The pledge to broaden arrests came as an immigration sweep that sowed fear across the Los Angeles area has been met by a growing protest movement to stop the raids and arrests. 'This appears to be a targeted, political attack on resistance to a military incursion on our communities.' In addition to arresting hundreds of immigrants across Southern California, the government is targeting a mounting number of people who are responding to the raids or helping protests. Some of those targeted have provided supplies to protesters or tried to identify ICE agents conducting raids in masks and plain clothes. The remarks from Sheahan, the ICE official, came three days after a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to stop indiscriminate ICE raids in LA. In the order, Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong condemned the administration's use of a person's characteristics — like their appearance, accent, or occupation — as a basis for arrest. 'Roving patrols' operating without reasonable suspicion and denying access to lawyers violated the Fourth and the Fifth Amendments, the judge wrote. 'What the federal government would have this Court believe — in the face of a mountain of evidence presented in this case — is that none of this is actually happening.' Now, those accused of helping the anti-ICE movement are facing prosecution or investigation. Earlier this month, a federal grand jury indicted a man after he handed out face shields to people protesting ICE in Los Angeles two days after President Donald Trump deployed the National Guard. Alejandro Orellana, 29, pleaded not guilty to a charge of conspiracy to aid and abet civil disorders. According to a grand jury indictment, the face shields were 'advertised as designed to protect from chemical splashes and flying debris.' 'Alejandro Orellana's arrest for distributing supplies is an outrageous violation of civil rights and should be a wakeup call to people everywhere,' said California attorney Thomas Harvey. 'This appears to be a targeted, political attack on resistance to a military incursion on our communities,' Harvey said. 'Distributing supplies to protesters is not a crime. It's a critical role to help keep people safe — especially in the face of some of the most violent police repression I've seen since the Ferguson uprising.' 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Prosecutors dropped charges against three of the activists last year, and others are still awaiting trial. In a slew of other high-profile cases, elected officials have been arrested for aiding migrants being pursued for arrest by ICE agents. Earlier this year, the FBI arrested a judge accused of helping a man use an alternate exit from a courtroom when ICE agents were waiting outside the main door. 'It should be terrifying to every person that the U.S.' In Arizona in 2018, prosecutors famously slapped humanitarian volunteers offering food, shelter, and water to migrants in the desert with federal criminal charges. Border Patrol targeted their faith-based group as a criminal organization. In 2005, activists with the same group faced criminal charges for transporting migrants to receive medical care; the charges were later dismissed. 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USA Today
41 minutes ago
- USA Today
Safety measure? Or intimidation tactic? Masked ICE agents spark the debate
Federal authorities say Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents need to hide their identities to protect their families. Critics say this makes a difficult situation worse. Immigration agents are increasingly hiding their faces behind masks, a move that is drawing new criticism as the White House ramps up detention and deportations and prepares to dispatch more officers. A group of Democratic attorneys general have now asked Congress to pass a law forcing ICE agents to routinely operate without masks, arguing the policy of letting agents operate anonymously has sparked multiple police impersonators. Democratic members of Congress have also pushed the administration to make ICE agents more readily identifiable. Federal authorities say U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents need to conceal their identities to protect their families from retaliation as they execute President Donald Trump's orders to conduct the largest mass deportation in history. Attacks on the rise: ICE agents hurt as assaults surge 700% amid aggressive enforcement Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said gang members and Antifa-affiliated groups have been publicizing agents' faces and home addresses. She said agents need to mask up to remain safe, especially when there have now been multiple attacks on federal immigration sites and on individual agents. "We will prosecute those who dox ICE agents to the fullest extent of the law. These criminals are taking the side of vicious cartels and human traffickers," Noem said in a July 11 statement. "We won't allow it in America." 'Pissing off ordinary Americans' Critics say masked agents are being used largely as an intimidation tactic that has little grounding in actual officer safety. They fear it's instead weakening bonds between the public and law enforcement. The ACLU also argues the lack of accountability exacerbates racial profiling by unidentifiable officers. "Secret police tactics like this erode trust in law enforcement and allows criminals to dangerously impersonate officers ‒ which is already happening," said Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat. Retired California police supervisor Diane Goldstein said masked agents are exacerbating tensions because there's virtually no public accountability when law enforcement operates anonymously. Goldstein was a police lieutenant in the Los Angeles area and is now executive director of the Law Enforcement Action Partnership, a nonprofit that works with communities to help reform policing. "You know who doesn't wear masks? Judges. District attorneys. Public defenders. State and local law enforcement, except for very narrow carveouts," Goldstein said. "The safety issue is just an excuse. The administration doesn't seem to understand that it's their heavy-handed tactics that are increasing the level of danger to their officers. They are pissing off ordinary Americans." Harder to 'tell the difference between a bad guy and a good guy' The issue of wearing masks in public to provide anonymity has a long history in the United States, and some states ban protesters from wearing them. Those laws typically trace their origin to KKK marches, but have more recently used by authorities to limit mask-wearing by pro-Palestinian protesters, often on college campuses, according the the ACLU. Trump himself has criticized protesters who wear masks, posting on Truth Social on June 8, "... from now on, masks will not be allowed to be worn at protests. What do these people have to hide, and why???" Goldstein said Trump's comment gets at the heart of why police officers should rarely hide their identity. Modern policing traces its origins to Sir Robert Peel's "Nine Principles of Policing, developed in the early 1800s to guide England's new Metropolitan Police. The "Peelian principles" centered the approach that effective policing depends on community cooperation, trust, and the concept that officers are part of the community, not standing apart from it. "Everything they are saying goes against everything law enforcement has been taught about how we should serve others," Goldstein said of the masked agents. "Right now, Homeland Security is operating like thugs and criminals. And when we can't tell the difference between a bad guy and a good guy..."
