Miami archbishop asks to hold Mass at Alligator Alcatraz. ‘Still waiting' for answer
Archbishop Thomas Wenski visited 'Alligator Alcatraz,' Florida's new migrant detention center located in an isolated airstrip near the Big Cypress National Preserve, to pray for for detainees. But the entrance of the facility is as far as he was able to go without approval from officials.
'Sunday PM about 25 Knights on Bikes stopped at entrance of Alligator Alcatraz and prayed a rosary for the detainees,' Wenski wrote on a post on X. 'Archdiocese is still waiting for approval to access to provide Mass for detainees.'
Officials at the Archdiocese said they are still awaiting a response from the facility to allow chaplains and clergy to visit and 'offer spiritual care, the sacraments, and the healing presence of Christ to those in detention.'
Wenski, who recently denounced the detention center, was joined by around 25 'Knights on Bikes,' a charitable Catholic men's ministry within the Knights of Columbus organization, and shared photos and videos of the pastoral excursion.
The Archdiocese of Miami called the visit 'a powerful moment of prayerful solidarity,' that reflects the organization's 'ongoing commitment to ministering to the marginalized and incarcerated.'
'...Decency requires that we remember the individuals being detained are fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters of distressed relatives,' Wenski said in a statement. 'We wish to ensure that chaplains and pastoral ministers can serve those in custody, to their benefit and that of the staff.'
Sunday's motorcycle visit is the second act of solidarity the Catholic church has shown in recent weeks to oppose Florida's crackdown on deportations. In a prior statement, Wenski said it was 'alarming to see enforcement tactics that treat all irregular immigrants as dangerous criminals.'
In the strongly word column posted to the Archdiocese of Miami's website earlier this month, Wenski said 'the apparent lack of due process in deportation proceedings in recent months,' was surprising and called the rhetoric surrounding the 'Alligator Alcatraz' 'intentionally provocative.'
Gov. Ron DeSantis and other state officials have repeatedly defended conditions for detainees at the pop-up migrant camp. Earlier this month, Stephanie Hartman, a spokeswoman for the Florida Division of Emergency Management, said detainees' stories about problems at the facility — including toilets that don't flush, large bugs and temperatures that fluctuate from icy to sweltering — were inaccurate.
'The reporting on the conditions in the facility is completely false,' Hartman told the Herald. 'The facility meets all required standards and is in good working order.'
This story will be updated.
This story was produced with financial support from Trish and Dan Bell and from donors comprising the South Florida Jewish and Muslim Communities, including Khalid and Diana Mirza, in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners. The Miami Herald maintains full editorial control of this work.
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Newsweek
4 minutes ago
- Newsweek
Europe's Spate of Hostilities Toward Jews and Israelis Prompts Antisemitism Calls
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. A series of incidents in which Israelis and non-Israeli Jews have been targeted in Europe recently has sparked accusations of anti-Israeli bias and antisemitism amid rising international tensions and pressure on Israel over the Gaza war as images of starving Palestinians heighten emotions. The latest round of U.S.-led ceasefire talks for Gaza has collapsed, with the U.S. and Israel withdrawing negotiators from Qatar and blaming Hamas for the failure to reach agreement. Newsweek contacted Israel's foreign ministry and the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas' office for comment. Why It Matters Jewish groups have long warned of rising antisemitism in Europe, a concern that has surged since the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023 that sparked the Gaza war. They say criticism of Israel is increasingly spilling into hate speech and threats against Jews. Europe's stance toward Israel over the war in Gaza has hardened, sparking criticism from Israel as relations have turned increasingly tense. Both Israel and the United States have rejected President Emmanuel Macron's proposal to recognize a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly in September. European countries are split over how to respond to Israel, but have restrained from imposing sanctions. Passengers Removed The removal of about 50 Jewish teens and their camp director from a Vueling flight has sparked accusations of antisemitic discrimination from parents and Jewish groups. Witnesses told Israeli media the group was told to stop singing in Hebrew. Vueling said they were removed for "highly disruptive behavior" that put the flight at risk. The airline denied any link to religion. Spain has stepped up its criticism of Israel, urging an arms embargo and suspension of its trade deal. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez accused Israel of genocide in Gaza and while pro-Palestinian protests have swept Spanish cities. Tourists Blocked Greek and Israeli officials condemned an incident in which pro‑Palestinian protesters on the island of Syros prevented more than a thousand Israeli tourists from disembarking from a cruise ship. Protesters on Syros demanded a stop to the "destruction from the genocidal war" in Gaza and criticized Greece's growing ties with Israel but said their actions were political, not religious in nature, according to a statement published by The Guardian. Greek 🇬🇷 protestors chanting: 'Free Palestine 🇵🇸' While preventing an Israeli 🇮🇱 cruise ship from docking in Syros Israel 🇮🇱 is a pariah state Sanctions now Boycott now Expel Israel 🇮🇱 from the UN now. — Howard Beckett (@BeckettUnite) July 24, 2025 Greece was among dozens of European countries that issued a statement this week criticizing Israel's aid distribution model in the strip and opposing its settlement plans in the West Bank. Belgium Arrests The European Jewish Association accused Belgian authorities of "a politically motivated" move after two Israeli soldiers were briefly detained and questioned over alleged war crimes while vacationing in the country. The incident comes amid growing concern from Jewish leaders, who accuse Belgian institutions of enabling antisemitism—citing a government-backed "Resistance Festival" they say glorified Hamas, and police raids on mohels as a threat to religious life. Belgium has adopted a firmer stance on Gaza, supporting sanctions on Israel. King Philippe described abuses in Gaza as a "disgrace to humanity" on Monday, according to Reuters. Paris Incident In May, five Jewish sites in Paris—including the Holocaust museum, three synagogues, and a restaurant—were vandalized with green paint overnight, according to Reuters, in an act deemed "despicable" by France's Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau. Israeli President Isaac Herzog urged French authorities to protect the Jewish community from "hatred and attacks." The incident, condemned as antisemitic, comes amid rising hate crimes in France, with police reporting an 11% increase in racist or antireligious offenses last year, though without detailing the religious breakdown, the report added. A worker cleans the defaced with green paint Synagogue des Tournelles after several Jewish sites across the capital were defaced with green paint. Saturday, May 31, 2025 in Paris. A worker cleans the defaced with green paint Synagogue des Tournelles after several Jewish sites across the capital were defaced with green paint. Saturday, May 31, 2025 in Paris. Aurelien Morissard/AP Photo Tensions in UK Around the same time, The Community Security Trust, a Jewish community organization in Britain condemned an "appalling racist assault" after three Jewish teenagers were attacked and robbed at Hampstead Tube station in London. British Transport Police are treating the incident as "racially aggravated," according to the BBC. The UK has recently witnessed a series of such assaults, vandalism, and security threats. In June, the BBC came under fire after airing the Glastonbury Festival performance in which punk duo Bob Vylan led chants of "Death to the IDF," with Israeli officials describing it as "hateful" and "inflammatory," and the BBC apologizing over broadcasting "antisemitic sentiments." What People Are Saying Israel Minister of Combating Antisemitism Amichai Chikli wrote on X: "The @vueling airline crew said that Israel is a terrorist state and forced the children off the aircraft; they are now in Valencia, waiting to return to line with Hamas's campaign of lies echoed by Al Jazeera, Haaretz, and others, we are seeing numerous severe antisemitic incidents recently; this is one of the most serious." Greece's government spokesperson Pavlos Marinakis told Greek Media: "Antisemitism and any form of fascism and racism will not be tolerated in Greece. Our country - and this is a message we must send to the authorities and to everyone, who in general are doing their jobs very well - will not allow racist behaviour." Itamar Mann and Lihi Yona, associate law professors at Haifa University wrote in an opinion for The Guardianin March: "On the other hand, many critics of Israel and of Zionism argue against this conflation and in favor of their right to support the Palestinian struggle. For them, labeling anti-Israel positions as antisemitic is a way to silence dissenting opinions and to prevent an honest discussion of Israel's actions in Gaza." What Happens Next European countries are backing U.S.-led mediation efforts to reach a Gaza ceasefire, but anger against Israel runs strong in many European countries and that is being intensified by the images emerging from the Gaza Strip as Israel continues its war against Hamas.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Jewish Tacoma candidate opposed by PAC backing ‘interests of Jewish community'
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'Many of the most dangerous people crop up in the small cities,' Jared Sclar, co-founder of the California-based PAC, said of the Washington PAC in the substack article. 'If there is someone problematic, we may not know. We may not know someone is going to sneak by and get on the city council, and then they're the next Ilhan Omar,' Sclar wrote of Omar, a Democratic U.S. representative from Minnesota. Cook said she wasn't surprised to see such opposition to her campaign. 'I think these are the kind of hurdles that are very common when it comes to trying to win people-powered campaigns against corporate interests,' Cook told The News Tribune. The mail campaign came around mid-July, ahead of the Aug. 5 primary election that will whittle the slate of three candidates for the District 5 race down to two. Cook has raised the most money in the race so far at $47,012.98. Incumbent Joe Bushnell raised $35,744.14, and candidate Brandon A. Vollmer raised $851.03. The PAC as of July 24 raised $32,768.09 this year, only $1,000 of which came from a donor with a Tacoma address. The rest came from donors in Washington cities like Mercer Island, Seattle and Medina. At least one contributor listed an address in Naples, Florida. According to the Washington Public Disclosure Commission, the PAC spent $18,076.61 by July 24, $16,000 of which paid for the campaign against Cook. The mailers that the PAC distributed depicted her standing in front of a building with broken windows with graffiti that reads 'don't burn' and 'ppl live upstairs' overlaid with text that stated, 'Zev Cook cooking up chaos for Tacoma.' It also implied that Cook supported defunding the police and stated that doing so would result in increased crime, gang violence and home invasions. Cook, a community organizer and activist, has the backing of groups like the Tacoma and Pierce County Democratic Socialists of America, United Food & Commercial Workers Local 3000, and the Washington Education Association's PAC. Incumbent Joe Bushnell, who is running for re-election, has the endorsement of several state representatives, current and former council members, and the Tacoma Police Union, International Union of Police Associations Local 6. Bushnell also has Washingtonians for a Better Future's endorsement. 'Council Member Bushnell is a friend of the Jewish community,' the PAC's website reads. Bushnell said he didn't solicit an endorsement from the PAC but said he wasn't surprised to see the group oppose Cook, given her support from the Democratic Socialists of America. 'The groups that are supporting my opponent have very public rhetoric that rubs a lot of folks the wrong way,' Bushnell told The News Tribune. Cook, who is Jewish, said she feels the group is going after her because of her vocal support of Palestine. 'I'm the only candidate running for city council this year that's made public comments in support of Palestine and against genocide, in alignment with my Jewish values of community repair and justice,' she told The News Tribune. 'I think this is very similar in some ways, but certainly at a smaller scale, to the attack ads that were run against Zohran [Mamdani] for being a pro-Palestine candidate that he is continuing to be,' she said of Mamdani, who recently won the Democratic primary in New York City's mayoral race. 'But like Zohran I'm intending to win by continuing to just focus on how we make life better for working people in our city.' Nevet Basker, the PAC's co-chair, told The News Tribune the group is seeking to combat antisemitism and said it was Cook's 'rhetoric against Zionism' that the PAC opposes. 'We believe that the rhetoric in some of these campaigns, including Zev Cook, creates a permission structure for antisemitism that results in issues in our own communities, in Tacoma, in this case, where the Jewish community feels unwelcome and sometimes unsafe,' Basker told The News Tribune. Basker said the PAC's concerns also go beyond those of the Jewish community, to what she described as Cook's support for abolishing the police and prisons. 'She's also a leader of an organization that advocates for abolishing prisons and all incarceration releasing, even violent criminals, murderers, rapists, back into our communities,' Basker said. 'We believe that that is unsafe for everyone.' Cook, according to her website, has served as an officer for the Tacoma Democratic Socialists of America. The group also endorsed her in the District 5 race. The Democratic Socialists of America's political platform calls for the 'abolition of the carceral state.' 'For all of the working class to achieve collective liberation we must constrain, diminish, and abolish the carceral forces of the state — from prisons and police themselves, to their manifestations in all forms throughout society,' the platform reads. Cook told The News Tribune that she doesn't think that defunding the police 'is a very good framework for understanding public policy' and instead supports specific policies like increasing funding for Tacoma's non-police crisis response team. 'Generally, I think that we as a community need to be focused more on not just addressing the symptoms, but addressing root causes when it comes to crime, which is why our platform is so focused on addressing income and housing inequality in our community,' Cook said. She said she wasn't surprised to see the PAC's efforts to oppose her campaign and said the group wouldn't have sent out the mailer if they didn't think Cook had a real shot at winning. Some commenters on Reddit said that the anti-Cook flyer made them want to vote for her even more. 'Getting an attack ad like this just tells me that they've seen how effective our campaign has been at mobilizing the support of working class Tacomans,' she added. 'It tells me that they're scared that we might win this year.' Solve the daily Crossword
Fox News
3 hours ago
- Fox News
We can't abolish America's largest teachers union. But Congress can do something else
For decades, the National Education Association (NEA) – the country's largest teachers union – has amassed nearly unrivaled political power with which to pursue its own narrow self-interest and impose its radical social and economic agenda. COVID-19 placed the NEA under the microscope as never before, offering the union an opportunity for some much-needed introspection. In 2021, the Wall Street Journal editorial board proclaimed what informed conservatives have long known and what, by that time, had become obvious to the public at large: The NEA is "the ideological and institutional vanguard of progressive politics," a "powerful wing of the Democratic Party," and intent on "invading" public schools with "progressive politics." But instead of abandoning its partisan special interests and returning to its early mission of "[promoting] the cause of education in the United States," the NEA emerged from the pandemic determined to double down on every one of its harmful, misguided beliefs and ideologies. The NEA's annual Representative Assembly, held this month in Portland, generated headlines and mockery as copies of the controversial resolutions approved by the union's delegates were leaked to the public, including everything from attacking democratically elected President Donald Trump as a "fascist" to undermining the enforcement of our immigration laws and, in a brazen display of the union's antisemitism, cutting ties with the pro-Jewish Anti-Defamation League. While the growing public outcry over their extremism led the NEA to stop making its convention resolutions publicly available, the dizzying array of woke material freely available on the union's website is even more shocking. For instance, some of the "important" documents posted online for attendees at the NEA's Portland convention included: a "Pronoun Guide" claiming that people who do not habitually share their pronouns are "unsafe"; a byzantine "Land Acknowledgement Guide" directing readers to fight "colonization" by reminding attendees at any event of the "dispossession of Indigenous land and people"; and a form to submit complaints to the NEA's "Committee on Equity & Ethnic Harmony" should any conference attendee breach social justice protocols. More concerning was the NEA's nine-page "report" for convention delegates highlighting the union's priorities and activities in the first half of the year. Among other things, the union boasted about: "taking the lead in filing lawsuits" against the Trump administration; fighting efforts to defund DEI in public schools; shuttering schools with strikes; fighting "authoritarianism" and engaging in "resistance" by supporting the "No Kings" rally and similar protests; backing "World Pride and LGBTQ+ Pride Month"; organizing "labor opposition" to immigration enforcement; and working to "flip" the U.S. House of Representatives to Democrats in 2026. Notably absent from the union's achievements? Improving student learning, promoting family values or using tax dollars efficiently. If this is what happens when NEA completely controls an event and its programming, the union's tremendous influence over classrooms is a five-alarm fire not just for public education, but the future of our country. Congressional action addressing the pernicious influence of the teachers unions is long overdue. That's why I (Mr. Fitzgerald) and Sen. Cynthia Lummis from Wyoming have introduced the Stopping Teachers Unions from Damaging Education Needs Today (STUDENT) Act, which would overhaul the NEA's federal charter to make the union more accountable and less partisan. The NEA received a federal charter by act of Congress in 1906, granting it special recognition shared by only 95 organizations, including such storied American institutions as the Boy Scouts, the U.S. Olympic Committee and the VFW – company which the NEA no longer deserves to keep. Congressional Republicans have long proposed addressing the NEA's ideological extremism by repealing its federal charter. But as the Freedom Foundation explained in a 2023 report, the NEA incorporated under the laws of the District of Columbia long before receiving its federal charter, meaning it would continue to exist and operate as it does now even if stripped of its special federal recognition. The STUDENT Act takes a different approach, rewriting the union's charter rather than repealing it. According to the Freedom Foundation's analysis, the NEA's charter lacks many of the safeguards and accountability mechanisms common in other federal charters intended to ensure the chartered organizations remain uncontroversial, patriotic and deserving of federal recognition. Under the STUDENT Act, the NEA would have to abide by the same rules as other federally chartered entities, such as refraining from partisan political advocacy and abiding by corporate transparency requirements. The legislation also addresses some of the worst NEA practices unique to its status as a labor union, requiring it to respect teachers' First Amendment right to refrain from union membership, prohibiting it from closing schools with damaging strikes, barring the union from advocating for the core concepts of critical race theory, and more. Perhaps most importantly, the STUDENT Act would end direct and indirect taxpayer subsidies for the NEA and its affiliates around the country. Conservatives recognize that the time for action is now, with more than 30 organizations around the country endorsing the STUDENT Act. Republicans in Congress scored a huge win for education freedom with the recent passage of school choice tax credits in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. But the next step in making public education great again should be taking on the NEA.
