Latest news with #Guatemalans
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump wants to cut funding to sanctuary cities and towns – but they don't actually violate federal law
San Francisco, Chicago and New York are among the major cities – as well as more than 200 small towns and counties and a dozen states – that over the past 40 years have adopted what is often known as sanctuary policies. There is not a single definition of a sanctuary policy. But it often involves local authorities not asking about a resident's immigration status, or not sharing that personal information with federal immigration authorities. So when a San Francisco police officer pulls someone over for a traffic violation, the officer will not ask if the person is living in the country legally. American presidents, from Ronald Reagan to Joe Biden, have chosen to leave sanctuary policies largely unchallenged since different places first adopted them in the 1970s. This changed in 2017, when President Donald Trump first tried to cut federal funding to sanctuary places, claiming that their policies 'willfully violate Federal law.' Legal challenges during his first term stopped him from actually withholding the money. At the start of his second term, Trump signed two executive orders in January and April 2025 which again state that his administration will withhold federal money from areas with sanctuary policies. 'Working on papers to withhold all Federal Funding for any City or State that allows these Death Traps to exist!!!' Trump said, according to an April White House statement. This statement was immediately followed by his April executive order. These two executive orders task the attorney general and secretary of homeland security with publishing a list of all sanctuary places and notifying local and state officials of 'non-compliance, providing an opportunity to correct it.' Those that do not comply with federal law, according to the orders, may lose federal funding. San Francisco and 14 other sanctuary cities, including New Haven, Connecticut, and Portland, Oregon, sued the Trump administration in February on the grounds that it was illegally trying to coerce cities to comply with its policies. A U.S. district court judge in California issued an injunction on April 24 preventing the administration – at least for the time being – from cutting funding from places with sanctuary policies. However, as researchers who have studied sanctuary policies for over a decade, we know that Trump's claim that sanctuary policies violate federal immigration law is not correct. It's true that the federal government has exclusive jurisdiction over immigration. Yet there is no federal requirement that state or local governments participate or cooperate in federal immigration enforcement, which would require an act of Congress. In 1979, the Los Angeles Police Department was the first to announce a prohibition on local officials asking about a resident's immigration status. However, it was not until the 1980s that the sanctuary movement took off, when hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans, Guatemalans and Nicaraguans fled civil war and violence in their home countries and migrated to the U.S. This prompted a number of cities to declare solidarity with the faith-based sanctuary movement that offered refuge to Salvadoran, Guatemalan and Nicaraguan asylum seekers facing deportation. In 1985, Berkeley, Calif., and San Francisco pledged that city officials, including police officers, would not report Central Americans to immigration authorities as long as they were law abiding. Berkeley also banned officials from using local money to work with federal immigration authorities. 'We are not asking anyone to do anything illegal,' Nancy Walker, a supervisor for San Francisco, said in 1985, according to The New York Times. 'We have got to extend our hand to these people. If these people go home, they die. They are asking us to let them stay.' Today, there are hundreds of sanctuary cities, towns, counties and states across the country that all have a variation of policies that limit their cooperation with federal immigration authorities. Sometimes – but not always – places with sanctuary policies bar local law enforcement agencies from working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the country's main immigration enforcement agency. A large part of ICE's work is identifying, arresting and deporting immigrants living in the U.S. illegally. In order to carry out this work, ICE issues what is known as 'detainer requests' to local law enforcement authorities. A detainer request asks local law enforcement to hold a specific arrested person already being held by police until that person can be transferred to ICE, which can then take steps to deport them. While places without sanctuary policies tend to comply with these requests, some sanctuary jurisdictions, like the state of California, only do so in the cases of particular violent criminal offenses. Yet local officials in sanctuary places cannot legally block ICE from arresting local residents who are living in the country illegally, or from carrying out any other parts of its work. Trump claimed in 2017 that sanctuary policies violated federal law, and he issued an executive order that tried to rescind federal grants that these jurisdictions received. However, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in a 2018 case involving San Francisco and Santa Clara County, California, that the president could not refuse to 'disperse the federal grants in question without congressional authorization.' Federal courts, meanwhile, split over whether Trump could freeze funding attached to a specific federal program called the Edward Byrne Memorial Assistance Grant Program, which provides about US$250 million in annual funding to state and local law enforcement. These cases were in the process of being appealed to the Supreme Court when the Department of Justice, under Biden, asked that they be dismissed. Other Supreme Court rulings also suggest that the Trump administration's claim that it can withhold federal funding from sanctuary places rests on shaky legal ground. The Supreme Court ruled in 1992 and again in 1997 that the federal government could not coerce state or local governments to use their resources to enforce a federal regulatory program, or compel them to enact or administer a federal regulatory program. The first Trump administration was not generally successful, with the exception of the split over the Edward Byrne Memorial Assistance Grant Program, at stripping funding from sanctuary places. But cutting federal funding – even if it happens temporarily – can be economically damaging to cities and counties while they challenge the decision in court. Local officials also face other kinds of political pressure to comply with the Trump administration's demands. A legal group founded by Stephen Miller, deputy chief of staff in the Trump administration, for example, sent letters to dozens of local officials in January threatening criminal prosecution for their sanctuary policies. One part of Trump's argument against sanctuary policies is that places with these policies have more crime than those that do not. But there is no established relationship between sanctuary status and crime rates. There is, however, evidence that when local law enforcement and ICE work together, it reduces the likelihood of immigrant and Latino communities to report crimes, likely for fear of being arrested by federal immigration authorities. Sanctuary policies are certainly worthy of debate, but this requires an accurate representation of what they are, what they do, and the effects they have. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Benjamin Gonzalez O'Brien, San Diego State University and Loren Collingwood, University of New Mexico Read more: The legal limits of Trump's crackdown on sanctuary cities like Philadelphia Deporting millions of immigrants would shock the US economy, increasing housing, food and other prices Social movements constrained Trump in his first term – more than people realize The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Time of India
16-05-2025
- Business
- Time of India
5% rate, 0% sense
Times of India's Edit Page team comprises senior journalists with wide-ranging interests who debate and opine on the news and issues of the day. Trump's tax on remittances hurts US and immigrants Trump wants non-citizens – H-1Bs and Green Cards included – to pay 5% tax on money they send home. That's bad news for over 40mn immigrants, a tenth of whom are Indians. While Indians sent $32bn home from US in 2023-24, Mexicans sent twice as much. With a 5% remittance tax in place, their remittances would have reduced by $1.6bn and $3.2bn, respectively. US would have been richer by around $5bn, but even then this tax is bad policy. For one, it's bad in principle. All immigrants pay some taxes, so Trump shouldn't touch their post-tax income. Secondly, remittances already have high financial costs. Fees for transfers to India range from 0.8% to 10.8%, and the average is over 4%. Transfer fees for Ethiopia average 5.5%, and for Thailand 9%. Combined with a 5% Trump tax, that's a loss of 10-15%. Inevitably, many will switch to informal channels like hawala, where, depending on the amount sent, fees can be as little as 0.1%. But as US knows too well, hawala funds terrorists and drugs, which are two sides of the same coin. Bin Laden and fentanyl. Plus, as World Bank has pointed out, the administrative costs of taxing remittances can be higher than the gains. Taxing remittances isn't a new idea. In 1937, Brazil imposed an 8% tax on remittances derived from interest payments. The state of Oklahoma already charges illegal immigrants – anyone without a valid ID – $7.5 on remittances up to $500, but earns just $13mn from it annually. Trump himself toyed with a remittance fee on Guatemalans in 2019. It wasn't a good idea then, and it isn't now. Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email This piece appeared as an editorial opinion in the print edition of The Times of India.
Time of India
24-04-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Guatemalan vice minister arrested after leading protests against prosecutor
Vice minister of energy and mines Luis Pacheco (Image: AP) GUATEMALA: Guatemalan police detained on Wednesday a deputy minister who led protests against a top public prosecutor at the center of a power struggle with President Bernardo Arevalo , who denounced the arrest. Arevalo has accused attorney general Consuelo Porras -- who is sanctioned by the United States and the European Union for corruption -- of seeking to overthrow him. Luis Pacheco, a vice minister of energy and mines, was arrested at the request of the attorney general's office on charges including terrorism and obstruction of justice, prosecution spokesman Moises Ortiz said. Arevalo called the detention "an act of criminalization" of the peaceful demonstrations. "It's an attack on the resistance struggle waged by the Guatemalan people in 2023 to prevent these political-criminal networks hidden in the public prosecutor's office from stealing the elections and thwarting the popular will," he added. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Google Brain Co-Founder Andrew Ng, Recommends: Read These 5 Books And Turn Your Life Around Blinkist: Andrew Ng's Reading List Undo Pacheco, an indigenous Mayan leader, chaired one of the organizations that called for the protests, which saw thousands of Guatemalans come out in support of Arevalo and demand the resignation of Porras. He was taken to court on Wednesday for an initial hearing, saying he was "outraged." Luis Almagro, Secretary General of the Organization of American States, said Pacheco's arrest was "political persecution" which "cannot continue to be the instrument that limits the country's democratic progress," according to a statement on social media platform X. The UN's Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Guatemala also issued a statement saying the government must guarantee that "no person is criminally prosecuted for exercising the right to peaceful assembly." Arevalo's anti-corruption crusade helped to seal his August 2023 election but also put him in the crosshairs of prosecutors themselves accused of graft. The former lawmaker, diplomat and sociologist has repeatedly denounced a "slow-motion coup d'etat" and unsuccessfully tried to remove Porras.
Yahoo
17-04-2025
- Yahoo
Mayor Mitchell: ICE sent New Bedford police wrong address before smash-and-grab arrest
NEW BEDFORD — Mayor Jon Mitchell said ICE sent a misleading email to New Bedford police on the morning agents smashed through a car window to arrest a Guatemalan man who had been sitting in his car with his wife awaiting their lawyer. Juan Francisco Méndez, 29, was driving with his wife, Marilú, when they were hemmed in by cars and approached by agents on Tallman Street on the morning of April 14. They would not get out of the car, asking to wait until their attorney could arrive. One of the agents, whose vest read "Police," used a sledgehammer-like implement to break in the window, and Méndez was arrested. They were dragged out, Marilú said, according to their attorney. Much of the incident, including the window being smashed, was caught on video by Marilú. ICE raid: Questions remain after ICE arrests 3 Guatemalans at New Bedford car wash Mitchell said ICE gave police the wrong street where the arrest was to be made that morning. Mitchell, a former federal prosecutor, said this was in keeping with the lack of information coming from ICE under the Trump administration, during a press conference April 16. 'The problem we have, that's what I'm here to assert, is that we just don't get good information out of ICE, information that I think the residents of our city are entitled to,' he said. An ICE spokesman issued the following statement on April 16: 'Juan Francisco-Mendez, 29, is an illegally present Guatemalan alien who was detained by ICE Boston in New Bedford, Massachusetts, April 14. During the course of his arrest, he refused to comply with officers' instructions and resisted apprehension. "ICE concurs with the actions deemed appropriate by the officers on the scene who are trained to use the minimum amount of force necessary to resolve the situation in a manner that ensures the success of the operation and prioritizes the safety of our officers.' Méndez was served with a notice to appear before a Justice Department immigration judge, ICE stated. According to ICE, Méndez illegally entered the United States on an unknown date, at an unknown location and without being inspected, admitted or paroled by a U.S. immigration official. Looking back: Remembering New Bedford's 2007 ICE raid on undocumented immigrants In a statement issued April 15, Mitchell said ICE had seemingly stopped the longstanding practice of alerting New Bedford police about planned operations in the city. They initially thought that there was no communication before the April 14 incident, he said, but there was an email, he said, directing officers to Deane Street — not Tallman Street, where the incident actually occurred. There is a lack of information coming from ICE about the arrest or the basis for it, he said. That includes whether Méndez has a criminal record. His wife has asserted he does not, as has his lawyer. 'But we need to hear that from ICE,' Mitchell said. 'I think what we saw in the video requires an explanation. It didn't seem like it was warranted, but there may have been some fact not known to the public that might have justified it. We're just not hearing anything,' Mitchell said. He added that the Trump administration has said it is prioritizing convicted criminals in these incidents. Mitchell said he'd be the first to say that he wants convicted criminals removed from New Bedford's streets. 'It should matter to everybody if these people are not criminals, that they're being detained because their identity is mistaken, that they're still adjudicating their immigration status,' Mitchell said. There's also the way the arrest was handled, Mitchell said. Why, he asked, did agents have to break the window? The couple had called from the car and were waiting for their attorney's arrival. The attorney arrived on the scene in about 30 minutes, driving from Providence. Yet the agents broke the window rather than wait. Mitchell said, 'Why the escalation?' He said it's his job as mayor to make sure residents are secure. 'And so, consistent with that, I need to know what's going on.' Mitchell added, 'If the administration is interested in legitimizing what it's doing, it should communicate, and it hasn't been doing it.' Méndez's attorney, Ondine Galvez Sniffin, said agents did not present a warrant, and that her client has 'absolutely no record that I am aware of in the state or in the country.' The couple are living in New Bedford and have a small child who was not with them. She said the use of force was 'absolutely' excessive. She said agents 'indicated they were looking for some guy by the name of Antonio, which is not my client. There would be no reasonable cause for them to use that level of violence.' Méndez is being held at Strafford County Correctional Facility in Dover, N.H., and he told Sniffin that a hearing would be held in May. She said ICE wouldn't acknowledge the arrest at first, directing her to call the FBI or ATF. Agents from those agencies instead told her to call ICE, she said. Kristen Setera, FBI public information officer, said Tuesday, 'This was an ICE ERO Boston arrest.' Sniffin said Méndez's paperwork "has already been submitted." 'We have filed paperwork for him. His wife was granted asylum status by an immigration judge, so she is a legal asylee and as her husband, he derives benefits. We were in the process of finalizing his benefits,' Sniffin said. This article originally appeared on Standard-Times: New Bedford Mayor Mitchell: ICE not communicating over arrest
Yahoo
15-04-2025
- Yahoo
Caught on video: ICE agents smash car window in New Bedford arrest. Was it the wrong man?
NEW BEDFORD — A 29-year-old Guatemalan man's arrest April 14 in New Bedford by ICE was caught in part by a dramatic video taken by his wife, including their car window being smashed to gain access. Juan Francisco Méndez was driving with his wife, Marilú, when they were hemmed in by cars and approached by ICE agents on Tallman Street. They would not get out of the car, asking to wait until their attorney could arrive. One of the agents, whose vest read "POLICE," used a sledgehammer-like implement to break in the window. They were dragged out, Marilú said, according to their attorney. Her husband was taken into custody. The incident took about 30 minutes. ICE arrests: Two immigrants detained at Bob's Tire in New Bedford by ICE Tuesday, according to advocate Their attorney, Ondine Galvez Sniffin, said they called her at about 9 a.m., and she arrived about 9:30 a.m. just as they were pulling away with Méndez. 'He yelled out to me, 'ayúdame,' help me. So I got to hear him, but it was too late.' She added there was no warrant presented. Her client has 'absolutely no record that I am aware of in the state or in the country.' The couple are living in New Bedford and have a small child who was not with them. She said the use of force was 'absolutely' excessive. Sniffin said, 'They indicated they were looking for some guy by the name of Antonio, which is not my client. There would be no reasonable cause for them to use that level of violence.' Her client is currently being held at Strafford County Correctional Facility in Dover, New Hampshire. Another raid: Questions remain after ICE arrests 3 Guatemalans at New Bedford car wash 'Hopefully, he'll have a hearing soon. My understanding is he has one coming up in May, and that's when we'll ask for bond. We'll try to get something sooner for him, but right now that's as much as I know. He will be incarcerated until the hearing.' That's according to her client, she added, who was told that by officials. She was unable to find him in ICE's system. In the video, one agent's vest read "FBI." 'When I tried to track them down, I called ICE. They said 'We don't have him in our system.' They said 'Why don't you call ATF and the FBI.' I called ATF and the FBI in Boston, and they said call ICE,' she said. Kristen Setera, FBI public information officer, said, 'This was an ICE ERO Boston arrest.' ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Sniffin is an immigration attorney and had been representing Méndez. 'He has a process underway. We have filed paperwork for him. His wife was granted asylum status by an immigration judge, so she is a legal asylee and as her husband, he derives benefits. We were in the process of finalizing his benefits. The paperwork has already been submitted,' Sniffin said. She hasn't done many detainment cases in the past because they generally involve criminal records, she said. 'But lately they've been picking up my clients who don't have criminal records. So, I've kind of been forced into doing more detention work.' New Bedford police were asked to fill out a report but refused at first, she said. 'They said it's a federal enforcement action. We can't get involved.' They agreed to a report regarding the damage to the couple's vehicle after 'significant argument.' 'I was insisting. They said, no. You can go to the federal agency for that report. I said, how? You want her to contact the FBI, the ATF? We don't even know what federal agency it is. I said she needs this at least for her insurance company so she can have the damage covered. That's when they said, fine. Here's a report number. You can pick it up at the police station.' This article originally appeared on Standard-Times: ICE arrest in New Bedford: Attorney says wrong man, excessive force
