Latest news with #BerkshireEdge
Newsweek
03-06-2025
- General
- Newsweek
ICE Arrests Migrant for Drunk Driving. He Has No Car and Can't Drive
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. Agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement reportedly detained an undocumented man as they searched for a drunk driver, but his family has said he does not own a car and doesn't know how to drive one. The masked agents grabbed the man—a landscape gardener whose name is not known—from his work site on Maple Avenue in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, on May 30, the Berkshire Edge reported. Newsweek has contacted the Department of Homeland Security for comment via email. Why It Matters Since taking office in January, President Donald Trump's administration has deported thousands of people while acting on campaign promises to remove millions of migrants living in the country illegally. Concerns have been raised amid the crackdown, with critics warning that the administration has not followed due process in some cases and may be ignoring court orders. The Trump administration says its efforts are necessary to keep Americans safe. Last week, Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, told Fox News that the administration was setting a goal of a minimum of 3,000 arrests by ICE each day and that the number could go higher. Protesters demonstrating against Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, who had arrested a Brazilian resident of their town earlier that week, in downtown Worcester, Massachusetts, on May 11. Protesters demonstrating against Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, who had arrested a Brazilian resident of their town earlier that week, in downtown Worcester, Massachusetts, on May 11. Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images What To Know Two business owners confronted the agents detaining the man, recording the arrest and repeatedly asking for identification. In a statement to CNN, ICE said the agents in the video were federal law enforcement officers and that the man who was detained was an "illegally present Colombian alien who violated the terms of his release by failing to report to immigration authorities." Linda Shafiroff and Sarah Stiner, co-owners of Creative Building Solutions on Maple Avenue, tried to intervene as the man was being detained, the Berkshire Edge reported. While the detained man does not work for them, he is an employee of a landscaping company that maintains their property, according to the newspaper. Stiner told the outlet that she noticed a blacked-out SUV in their private parking lot hours before the gardener arrived for work. She said that after the man arrived, other cars with additional agents pulled up. Shafiroff arrived when the arrest was already underway and filmed as she confronted the agents. "We don't need to give you IDs," one agent said in the video. "So how do we know you're federal?" she replied. The agent then told her to "call the locals." In the video, she said: "This gentleman can barely get in the car. He's being forced in and his hands jammed behind his back, and all they say is they're looking for someone who is a drunk driver." According to the Berkshire Edge, a relative of the man said he did not know how to drive or own a car, and his only method of transportation was his bicycle. ICE said in a news release on Monday that the agency and its federal law enforcement partners apprehended almost 1,500 people in May, including 790 who had been "charged with or convicted of crimes in the United States or abroad." Names and details of the charges were not provided. Among those detained is an 18-year-old high school student that the Department of Homeland Security said agents "never intended to apprehend." They arrested him after he was "found to be in the United States illegally." What People Are Saying Linda Shafiroff told the Berkshire Edge: "The intimidation level was what was most disturbing. They were covered up in masks, hoods, and vests, and no IDs. They did not behave like police officers. Police officers are respectful. They know people have rights. These guys were like thugs." Patricia Hyde, the acting field office director for ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Boston, said in a statement on Monday: "The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a safer place today thanks to the hard work and determination of the men and women of ICE and our federal partners." She added: "Make no mistake: Every person that we arrested was breaking our immigration laws, but most of these individuals had significant criminality. They are criminal offenders who victimized innocent people and traumatized entire communities—murderers, rapists, drug traffickers, child sex predators and members of violent transnational criminal gangs." What Happens Next It remains to be seen whether more details of the case will emerge. The family of the detained man told the Berkshire Edge that they had not heard from him.
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Massachusetts Housing Secretary says uncertainty may scare away investors
BOSTON (SHNS) – State government leaders in Massachusetts are trying to instigate a building boom to address a housing shortage marked by high rents and sale prices, but a top housing official is now warning that headwinds from Washington could threaten their efforts. 'The equity that's often needed to facilitate a deal doesn't like uncertainty, and we are in the midst of lots of uncertainty,' Housing and Livable Communities Secretary Ed Augustus said in Lee on Wednesday during a policy talk with local experts hosted by the Berkshire Edge. He added, 'If you come in and want to fund a project, and you look at what the [financial estimate] says, but you're going to actually go in the ground 18 months from now, how could you guarantee that those are the prices that you're going to have, given this uncertainty?' It's an argument Augustus also made earlier in the week, testifying before lawmakers in Gloucester on Monday about Gov. Maura Healey's fiscal year 2026 budget proposal. 'What developers tell me is equity, which they are usually pursuing in order to get the financing to build a unit, equity doesn't like uncertainty. And the idea that this project may cost 10 or 15 or 20% more than they're projecting, it doesn't often attract that investment,' Augustus said on Monday. The administration has long pointed to a goal of increasing the statewide supply of year-round housing by 222,000 units over the next decade — a 7% increase in supply. As production slowed over the past few decades, the share of homes available for sale or rent in Massachusetts has shrunk to 1.6%, and costs have skyrocketed. Programs focused on keeping low-income residents housed are struggling to keep up with housing inflation. The Massachusetts Rental Voucher Program has seen large increases in spending, without making a significant bump in the 160,000-person waitlist of people who need help paying rent. 'We're putting significant additional dollars into the voucher program, but not necessarily getting more vouchers. We're just having to pay higher rents for the vouchers that have already been leased so that we don't lose any of those units and have people fall into homelessness. So again, some of it is just, you're paying a lot more, but you're not necessarily getting more. You're trying to keep what you've got,' Augustus said Wednesday. The governor and Legislature passed a law last year that authorizes $5.16 billion in long-term bonding, mostly focused on production of new units. State officials are trying to put some of that money, and new production-oriented policies, to work in a state where building remains mostly under the oversight of local zoning rules. The state housing secretariat estimates that the law will lead to the creation of over 45,000 new units and the preservation of 27,000. The law was signed in August, three months before the election, and Healey and Augustus have both warned recently that policies coming down from President Donald Trump could threaten the planned production boom. In addition to seeing a pullback of investors, the housing secretary warned Wednesday about Trump's tariffs on lumber making it more expensive to build housing. 'When you get most of your lumber from Canada, and that's subject to a 25% tariff, that is driving up the costs,' he said. Trump's promised tariffs on Canadian lumber are scheduled to start on April 2. The 25% tariff on softwood lumber used in most home building would be on top of the existing 14.5% lumber tariffs previously imposed by the U.S. Department of Commerce, according to the National Association of Home Builders. At a National League of Cities Conference, Vice President JD Vance spoke Monday about the national housing crisis, calling it 'not acceptable or sustainable' that the average income it takes to buy a new house is nearly two times the average salary of a typical American family. 'We want Americans to be able to afford the American dream of homeownership because we know that when people own their homes, it makes them a stakeholder. It makes them a stakeholder in their neighborhoods, in their cities, and ultimately, of course, in this country that all of us love so much,' Vance said. He pointed at the Biden administration, saying the cost of a median-price home more than doubled under former President Joe Biden. He mentioned how lower energy costs could aid housing development, and lamented how immigrants living in the country illegally are increasing the demand for limited housing. In addition to urging people to be 'a little bit smarter about our local zoning rules,' Vance said the administration is working towards cutting red tape at the Office of Housing and Urban Development that 'hike costs and shift the decision-making from local governments to Washington, D.C.' 'I'm hard-pressed to think of a time in my 40 years of life where it's been so hard for normal American citizens to afford a home,' Vance said. 'Even renting a home has become a challenge or, worse yet, fallen completely out of reach for so many of our families.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
