Latest news with #ImmigrationandCustomsEnforcement
Indian Express
10 hours ago
- Politics
- Indian Express
US Homeland Security Chief claimed immigrant threatened to kill Trump; Investigators now doubt it
US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem made a claim: an undocumented immigrant had threatened to assassinate President Donald Trump. The claim is now being questioned by investigators, as per reports by The Associated Press (AP). The story drew swift attention from the White House and Trump allies. Now, new details emerge suggesting the man may have been framed. According to a person familiar with the matter who spoke to AP on condition of anonymity, investigators now believe the man, 54-year-old Ramon Morales Reyes, did not write the threatening letter Noem referenced. The letter had been shared publicly by Noem and her department, and was allegedly sent to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office. It contained a message written in blue ink threatening to shoot Trump at a rally and criticising deportation policies. Noem publicly announced the arrest and shared an image of Morales Reyes along with the letter on social media. The letter threatened to shoot Trump in the head with a rifle, and planned to return to Mexico afterward. A handwriting analysis reportedly showed that Morales Reyes' writing did not match the letter, and officials determined the threat was not credible. Officials now suspect that Morales Reyes may have been targeted in an effort to get him arrested and deported — a move that would prevent him from testifying in an upcoming assault trial in which he is a key witness. 'The investigation into the threat is ongoing,' the Department of Homeland Security said in an email to AP. 'Over the course of the investigation, this individual was determined to be in the country illegally and that he had a criminal record. He will remain in custody.' However, Morales Reyes' attorneys stated he is not currently facing any criminal charges, and they have not seen documentation of past convictions. Morales Reyes, who works as a dishwasher in Milwaukee and lives with his wife and three children, had applied for a U visa — reserved for undocumented immigrants who are victims of serious crimes and assist law enforcement. His application was filed by attorney Kime Abduli. Abduli strongly disputed the claim that Morales Reyes could have written the letter. 'There is really no way that it could be even remotely true,' she told the AP. 'We're asking for a clarification and a correction from DHS to clear Ramon's name of anything having to do with this.' Abduli said her client cannot read or write in Spanish and does not speak English. She also noted it remains unclear whether Morales Reyes was arrested because of the letter or for another reason. ICE records show Morales Reyes has been in custody at a county jail in Juneau, Wisconsin, since May 21. He is expected to appear in immigration court in Chicago next week to request bond, according to attorney Cain Oulahan, who is representing him in his deportation case. (With inputs from AP)
Arab Times
10 hours ago
- Politics
- Arab Times
Noem said immigrant threatened to kill Trump, story quickly fell apart
WASHINGTON, May 31, (AP): A claim by US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem that an immigrant threatened the life of President Donald Trump has begun to unravel. Noem announced an arrest of a 54-year-old man who was living in the US illegally, saying he had written a letter threatening to kill Trump and would then return to Mexico. The story received a flood of media attention and was highlighted by the White House and Trump's allies. But investigators actually believe the man may have been framed so that he would get arrested and be deported from the US before he got a chance to testify in a trial as a victim of assault, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press. The person could not publicly discuss details of the investigation and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity. Law enforcement officials believe the man, Ramon Morales Reyes, never wrote a letter that Noem and her department shared with a message written in light blue ink expressing anger over Trump's deportations and threatening to shoot him in the head with a rifle at a rally. Noem also shared the letter on X along with a photo of Morales Reyes, and the White House also shared it on its social media accounts. The letter was mailed to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement office along with the FBI and other agencies, the person said. As part of the investigation, officials had contacted Morales Reyes and asked for a handwriting sample and concluded his handwriting and the threatening letter didn't match and that the threat was not credible, the person said. It's not clear why Homeland Security officials still decided to send a release making that claim. In an emailed statement asking for information about the letter and the new information about Morales Reyes, the Department of Homeland Security said "the investigation into the threat is ongoing. Over the course of the investigation, this individual was determined to be in the country illegally and that he had a criminal record. He will remain in custody.' His attorneys said he was not facing current charges and they did not have any information about convictions in his record. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's records show Morales Reyes is being held at a county jail in Juneau, Wisconsin, northwest of Milwaukee. The Milwaukee-based immigrant rights group Voces de la Frontera, which is advocating for his release, said he was arrested May 21. Attorney Cain Oulahan, who was hired to fight against his deportation, said he has a hearing in a Chicago immigration court next week and is hoping he is released on bond.
Yahoo
16 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
Ex-Yale student released from immigration jail; U.S. judges limit ICE arrest authority in CT courts
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents released Afghan refugee Saifullah Khan on bond Friday evening, nearly a month after they immobilized him with Taser fire and detained him as he and his wife left an immigration hearing in Hartford's federal building. In a related development, Connecticut's U.S. District Court judges issued an order less than a month after Khan's arrest limiting the authority of federal immigration agents to make arrests and detain people in buildings that house the state's three federal courts. Khan, who was born in a Pakistani refugee camp after his family was forced by the Taliban to flee Afghanistan, came to the United States to study at Yale University. He has applied for asylum and the application had been pending for nine years when he was detained on May 9. Witnesses said plain clothes ICE agents confronted Khan without identifying themselves as he left an immigration hearing. When he tried to return to the courtroom to seek assistance from the judge, he was hit seven times with Tasers and required medical attention. Immigration Judge Theodore Doolittle tried to intervene in the arrest, but was not allowed to do so by immigration agents, the witnesses said. The arrest took place on the sixth floor of a secure Ribicoff Federal Building on Main Street. Khan was held at immigration detention centers in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania since his arrest — including the three days since Tuesday when an immigration judge in Massachusetts issued an order releasing him on a $7,500 bond. During a brief conversation after his release in Pennsylvania Friday night, as he was driven to a meeting with family members, Khan said he has not been given an explanation as to what led to his arrest, why he was not immediately allowed to post a court-ordered bond and why he ultimately was released. Immigration authorities did not respond to questions about the case. 'While I was hospitalized, they told me: 'We were in hot pursuit. We were going to get you. You shouldn't have run,'' Khan said. 'I was at court,' he said. 'I am law abiding. I was presenting myself to the judge. Even if it is a final order for removal, I am very grateful for the time I have been in the United States. I have been here for 14 years. I am very lucky to have spent so much time here and been given the opportunity to assimilate. And I would like to have that opportunity and privilege in the future as well. I would love to be an American citizen. I would love to be able to call myself an American.' Khan's arrest followed his decision to sue in an effort to compel a decision on his asylum application after years of what his lawyers characterized as government inaction. The suit names senior Trump administration figures, including Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem. Within weeks of naming Noem and the others, Khan received a notice that ICE had begun proceedings to deport him and he was ordered to appear at the hearing, after which he was detained. He has no criminal record, but was accused by a Yale classmate of sexually assaulting her after a date in 2015. He was acquitted of all charges after a trial in criminal court. When Yale expelled him in spite of the acquittal, he sued the school for defamation and related rights violations. The suit is pending. The order Thursday by the federal judges concerning arrests in federal court buildings prevents immigration agents from making arrests and detaining people in areas of the buildings occupied by the federal courts and restricts authority to do so to the U.S. Marshal Service. In Hartford's Ribicoff Federal Building, which is larger than federal court buildings in New Haven and Bridgeport and houses federal agencies other than the courts on upper floors, Department of Homeland Security agents can continue to make arrests on non-judicial floors, according to the order. The order appears to be limited to judicial areas of the Ribicoff building because of questions about whether the security authority of the federal judiciary extends to areas of federal buildings that house operations of executive branch agencies, such as Homeland Security and its subsidiary agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Immigration courts are not part of the federal judiciary, but are operated by executive branch appointees for the purpose of adjudicating immigration questions. Increasingly aggressive efforts by federal immigration authorities to arrest non citizens — including decisions to target courts for enforcement efforts — has led to concerns about safety and other issues among some court administrators. The federal judiciary said its order limiting arrest authority in Connecticut's U.S. District Court is based on a commitment to ensure 'the orderly conduct of court proceedings and the safety of litigants, witnesses, attorneys, the public, and court personnel.' Similar questions are being analyzed by officials working in the state judiciary, which has a far greater case volume than the federal courts. Among other things, there have been discussions in both court systems about whether immigration agents should be allowed to enter courtrooms while proceedings are underway in order to detain suspected non-citizens. Among other things, prosecutors warn that such detentions could lead eventually to dismissal of charges against criminal defendants who have been the subject of protracted criminal investigation and prosecution. The federal court order makes certain exceptions, including for circumstances in which suspects turn themselves in for arrest and agents transport people arrested elsewhere to court.
Miami Herald
17 hours ago
- Politics
- Miami Herald
‘Returning to Haiti is suicide': Migrants face harrowing choice after Supreme Court ruling
From the moment President Donald Trump took office, Flo has worried and contemplated her next steps. The mother of a 5-year-old daughter who is still in Haiti, Flo, the beneficiary of the Biden-era humanitarian program known as CHNV, didn't want to be limited by the restrictions that come with a political asylum claim, so she didn't apply. But neither did the North Miami woman want to return to gang-ridden Haiti, where most people are dependent on the remittances that flow into the country from abroad to survive — and where in moments everyday life can take a drastic turn for the worse. 'I've been looking at my options,' said Flo, who asked that her full name not be used for fear she will be targeted by immigration authorities. She said she's thinking about moving to Canada, where she has over a dozen family members, but has yet to make up her mind. 'Returning to Haiti is suicide. You never know what's going to happen to you.' On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court left Flo and as many as a half-million other immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela with few options when it ruled that the Trump administration can, for the moment, terminate the humanitarian program that granted them temporary legal status in the United States. 'I couldn't see any hope in Haiti and even now, I don't see any hope,' said Flo. 'When they say 'Haitians have to go,' and Haitians don't want to leave, it's because they know there is no life in Haiti.' Even though there are parts of Haiti not yet controlled by the armed criminal gangs that have run amok in the capital and other regions, it's just a matter of time, because the government has been so inept at combating them, Flo said: 'When you have an open wound and you don't treat it, it will spread.' Unlike Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, whose governments have been traditionally reluctant to take back deportees from the United States, Haiti always complies, making Haitians in the U.S. more vulnerable that the other nationalities. Haiti's government says it can't turn down the repatriation of its citizens. But more fundamentally, the country's current unelected leaders are totally dependent on the U.S. for their political survival, for humanitarian assistance and for the money that pays for the country's national police and an international security support mission. Kidnappings, other atrocities This year alone, the Trump administration has landed at least three Immigration and Customs Enforcement flights in Haiti. Though the numbers are nowhere that of the Dominican Republic — which has repatriated at least 139,000 Haitians this year — the Department of Homeland Security has sent deportation flights despite warnings about the dangers Haitians face on returning and calls by immigration advocates and the United Nations to stop. Haitians make up one of the largest beneficiaries of the parole program — known as CHNV for the initials of the four nationalities affected — with approximately 211,010 taking advantage of the benefit as of the end of last year. Haitians were not part of the program initially, but they were added by the Biden administration to provide humanitarian relief as the country collapsed into lawlessness, as well as to prevent a mass migration to South Florida. The program allowed people from the four countries to come to the U.S., at a rate of 30,000, a month if they passed background checks, had a financial sponsor in the U.S. and bought their plane ticket. Some of the Haitians who arrived as part of the program were people like Flo, living outside the capital and searching for a better life. Others — nurses, police officers, bankers, doctors and other professionals —had been victims of kidnappings and other atrocities. Now, in the absence of some other means of staying legally in the U.S. such as Temporary Protected Status or a political asylum claim, they have found themselves forcibly rendered undocumented overnight, leaving them vulnerable to deportation to a country that remains overwhelmed by violence and rapidly worsening political instability. 'Today's ruling does not just impact up to half a million legal immigrants in this country. It upends the lives of their employers, their families and their loved ones,' Karen Tumlin, founder and director of the advocacy group Justice Action Center, said on the brink of tears during a press call Friday. 'In short, it impacts all of us. Trump's cruel immigration agenda is not dramatically sealed off from those of us who have the fortune to be U.S. citizens at birth, we are all impacted by this cruelty, and to all Americans who care about the rule of law.' In Haiti's case, neither a recent U.S. designation of the armed groups as terrorist organizations nor a multinational force led by Kenya has made a dent in the gangs' ability to sow chaos. So its nationals in the United States who came under the CHNV program now face a hard choice: Do they stay and risk being deported, return home and being kidnapped or killed, or flee some place else? 'For the Trump administration to find it okay to send people to Haiti right now is unbelievable. It's unconscionable,' said Guerline Joseph, executive director and co-founder of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, an immigrants' rights group. 'We don't even understand the narrative behind it, other than ... racism. 'We are calling on the administration to reconsider their plan, and we are calling on the American people to voice their concerns against these extreme conditions, and we are asking the community to stay vigilant, to make sure that they take care of themselves, take a moment to breathe,' she added. Speaking directly to Haitians in Creole during a press conference after the Supreme Court decision, Joseph acknowledged what she called a 'painful day.' But she said the group's legal team, which filed the lawsuit that led to the Supreme Court's order Friday, plans to continue its fight. 'Many lives are at risk, and we know that deportations continue to go to Haiti every single month, so we are really pushing back and trying to see what's the best way moving forward,' she said. 'Deeply disappointing' Paul Christian Namphy, policy director of Family Action Network Movement in Miami, which works with Haitian migrants, also called on the Haitian community to remain united and engaged. 'This deeply disappointing ruling jeopardizes the lives of approximately half a million people who fled violence and instability seeking safety, dignity and opportunity,' said Namphy. 'We will not stop fighting for the rights, dignity and livelihoods of immigrants.' Rivly Breus knew that the CHNV program had a two-year window when she applied with her Miami non-profit, the Erzule Paul Foundation, to help resettle refugees by providing financial sponsorship. Through the organization Breus and other Americans were encouraged to sponsor refugees from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Ukraine and Afghanistan. Breus, who lives in North Miami, took in 30 people, whom she helped find jobs, enroll in school and start making a better life. 'It's not that they want to leave their country to come to America,' she said. 'It's just circumstances that are forcing them to come over here.... They are grateful to be here away from all the tragedies and difficulties they were facing in their homeland.' She said the administration's line tarring immigrants are criminals is wrong. 'These people are family members, mothers, daughters, sons, fathers, and just your regular next-door neighbor, basically they're just looking to survive,' she said. Though she said she isn't shocked by Friday's ruling, she is disappointed and worried about its impact. 'We thought that going through the courts would give us more time to do what we needed to do, whether it's finding loopholes or trying to get as many advocates together to see if we could put a halt on the proceedings,' Breus said. 'Now what do I tell those who have court dates when they go to court? What's going to happen? Are they going to be deported right away? Are they going to be taken on a bus to a detention center?' Those are the very questions people have been asking her, especially those from Haiti, even before Friday's ruling. 'Where are they going to go?' Breus said as her mother, a Haitian immigrant herself, looked on. 'The ones from Port-au-Prince, they can't go back, because some of their homes are occupied by gangs, or their neighborhoods are occupied. For those who are going elsewhere outside of Port-au-Prince, where there was unemployment and no stability or opportunities, what kind of opportunity is there?'' 'Going someplace else' Flo has been in the U.S. since 2023, and works a part-time job stocking store shelves overnight making $14.50 an hour. Some weeks she may work three days or even a full week. Other weeks she may find herself sitting at home for five straight days. Regardless of whether she works or not, she has to send money home to take care of her daughter and other family members. 'If you are working over here and you have family in Haiti and you don't send money, you're committing a huge crime,' she said. Though life in the U.S. hasn't been without challenges, she said, it's still better than Haiti. 'Here you can walk outside and know nothing is going to happen to you,' she said. 'But not in Haiti. There you can lie down and, just like that, you're dead from a stray bullet.' Still, she knows her time is running out and her options are limited. Though she has Temporary Protected Status, that will end in three months unless the administration extends it, which appears unlikely. The administration, which announced Friday that diplomat Henry Wooster will replace U.S. Ambassador Dennis Hankins to lead its embassy in Port-au-Prince, has not given any indication of what it will do. 'If they tell me categorically I have to go, I don't have a choice,' Flo said. Still, she says, Haiti is not an option, even though she misses her daughter and it pains her to hear her ask when she is coming home. 'I'm going some place else.'
Yahoo
18 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
Kristi Noem said an immigrant threatened to kill Trump. The story quickly fell apart
A claim by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem that an immigrant threatened the life of President Donald Trump has begun to unravel. Noem announced an arrest of a 54-year-old man who was living in the U.S. illegally, saying he had written a letter threatening to kill Trump and would then return to Mexico. The story received a flood of media attention and was highlighted by the White House and Trump's allies. But investigators actually believe the man may have been framed so that he would get arrested and be deported from the U.S. before he got a chance to testify in a trial as a victim of assault, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press. The person could not publicly discuss details of the investigation and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity. Law enforcement officials believe the man, Ramon Morales Reyes, never wrote a letter that Noem and her department shared with a message written in light blue ink expressing anger over Trump's deportations and threatening to shoot him in the head with a rifle at a rally. Noem also shared the letter on X along with a photo of Morales Reyes, and the White House also shared it on its social media accounts. The letter was mailed to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement office along with the FBI and other agencies, the person said. As part of the investigation, officials had contacted Morales Reyes and asked for a handwriting sample and concluded his handwriting and the threatening letter didn't match and that the threat was not credible, the person said. It's not clear why Homeland Security officials still decided to send a release making that claim. In an emailed statement asking for information about the letter and the new information about Morales Reyes, the Department of Homeland Security said "the investigation into the threat is ongoing. Over the course of the investigation, this individual was determined to be in the country illegally and that he had a criminal record. He will remain in custody.' His attorneys said he was not facing current charges and they did not have any information about convictions in his record. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's records show Morales Reyes is being held at a county jail in Juneau, Wisconsin, northwest of Milwaukee. The Milwaukee-based immigrant rights group Voces de la Frontera, which is advocating for his release, said he was arrested May 21. Attorney Cain Oulahan, who was hired to fight against his deportation, said he has a hearing in a Chicago immigration court next week and is hoping he is released on bond. Morales Reyes had been a victim in a case of another man who is awaiting trial on assault charges in Wisconsin, the person familiar with the matter said. The trial is scheduled for July. Morales Reyes works as a dishwasher in Milwaukee, where he lives with his wife and three children. He had recently applied for a U visa, which is carved out for people in the country illegally who become victims of serious crimes, said attorney Kime Abduli, who filed that application. The Milwaukee Police Department said it is investigating an identity theft and victim intimidation incident related to this matter and the county district attorney's office said the investigation was ongoing. Milwaukee police said no one has been criminally charged at this time. Abduli, Morales Reyes' attorney, says he could not have written the letter, saying he did not receive formal education and can't write in Spanish and doesn't know how to speak English. She said it was not clear whether he was arrested because of the letters. 'There is really no way that it could be even remotely true,' Abduli said. 'We're asking for a clarification and a correction from DHS to clear Ramon's name of anything having to do with this.' Mike Balsamo, Scott Bauer And Adriana Gomez Licon, The Associated Press
