Latest news with #LaResistencia
Hindustan Times
3 days ago
- Politics
- Hindustan Times
Who is Maximo Londonio? Tacoma Green card holder's ICE detention sparks protests
Supporters stood outside the Northwest ICE Processing Center Friday afternoon, demanding the release of Maximo 'Kuya Max' Londonio — a well-known labor union leader, US green card holder, and father of three. Londonio, 42, was taken into custody by Customs and Border Protection after coming back from a trip to the Philippines. The trip was to pay tribute to his late mother and celebrate his wedding anniversary with his wife, Crystal. 'He's not a danger. He's one of us. He's our brother,' one protester shouted, as chants of support filled the air outside the facility. Crystal said her husband has a past, which they believe is the reason he's now detained. But she also said Max took ownership of the mistakes he made many years ago. 'Max took responsibility for what he did more than 25 years ago and fulfilled all the requirements set by the court,' Crystal said. She believes both governments have now left him behind. 'They told us they're waiting to see what the US will do before making a decision,' Crystal added. Crystal has found help through Tanggol Migrante, a migrant advocacy group, and is now working with them to raise awareness about how detention affects families. Also Read: Have a valid Green Card? You might still face deportation - Here's why 'This hits the economy too, and it's bringing it down,' said Jo Faralan from Tanggol Migrante. 'Migrant workers keep so much of this country running.' Advocates say Londonio's case isn't rare — and want big changes. 'I want my husband home, and our daughters want their dad back now,' Crystal said. The family has teamed up with immigrant rights groups and labor unions calling for the release of all detainees. During the protest, a bus — passenger count unknown — entered the facility as Crystal joined chants of 'Free them all.' La Resistencia, another advocacy group, says the Tacoma detention center is overcrowded, now holding over 1,600 people. The group also says conditions are getting worse, while two to three deportation flights leave each week.
Yahoo
28-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Tacoma ICE detention center reported that someone escaped from custody, police say
The Tacoma Police Department responded Wednesday to the federal immigration detention center on the Tideflats after the facility reported that someone in custody escaped, according to a police spokesperson. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has not confirmed whether a person detained at the Northwest ICE Processing Center escaped. A spokesperson did not immediately respond Friday morning to a request for information. A representative for the GEO Group, the federal contractor that runs the facility, also has not responded to questions. Sgt. John Correa with Tacoma police said in a phone call that South Sound 911 received a call from the facility Wednesday at about 7:30 p.m. reporting that someone in custody had escaped. He said officers responded to assist in conducting an area check, but no one was located. 'Officers got to the area around 8 p.m., and about 20 minutes later they were told that the facility's resources would be taking over the matter,' Correa said. About an hour later, Correa said, someone from the facility called again asking Tacoma police to check the area of a Pilot Express gas station on Puyallup Avenue. According to Correa, no one was located. 'TPD isn't coordinating anything with the Northwest detention center into this matter,' Correa added. Reports surfaced on social media Thursday about an escape. Katie Daviscourt, a reporter with the Canadian news website The Post Millennial, posted on X that 'federal law enforcement sources' told her there had been an escape at the ICE detention center in Tacoma and that the 'escapee' was on the loose. The Post Millennial has been described as a far right website by the Southern Poverty Law Center and Media Matters for America, which describes itself on its website as a nonprofit 'dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation.' La Resistencia, a group that advocates for closing the ICE facility and ending deportations, posted Thursday to Instagram that it had received several messages informing the group that phone lines were shut down inside the facility and there was an unscheduled call for an emergency count. The group keeps in close contact with detainees inside. The facility at 1623 E. J St. has a capacity for 1,575 detainees. It holds people who are suspected of being in the country illegally or awaiting deportation. Lawyers who work in the facility and La Resistencia said this week that the population of people detained there is nearing capacity.
Yahoo
27-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Detained population at Tacoma ICE center nearing capacity as immigration arrests increase
The population of people held in the privately-run immigration detention center in Tacoma has continued to grow since President Donald Trump began his second term in January, and an activist group and lawyers say it is nearing capacity. The Northwest ICE Processing Center, which holds people who are suspected of being in the country illegally or awaiting deportation, has bed space for 1,575 people. Elizabeth Benki, a directing attorney for the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project's detention work, estimated Wednesday that 1,400 to 1,500 people are detained at the facility. La Resistencia, a group that advocates for closing the NWIPC and ending deportations, said Wednesday that there are more than 1,500 people held there. According to ICE statistics, the facility's average daily population hasn't been over 1,181 since before the COVID-19 pandemic. That number is the guaranteed minimum detainees ICE is required to pay its contractor, the GEO Group, for overseeing. 'There was a sharp increase after Jan. 20,' Benki said. 'What we're seeing, I think, is a combination of two things. I think there's more people being detained, and there's also fewer people getting released, particularly on bond.' Before Jan. 20, Benki said the facility's population had hovered between 700 and 800 for a couple years. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had 46,269 people in detention across the country as of March 9, according to Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC). That's the most people it has had detained since October 2019. ICE detentions also recently surpassed the number of people detained by Customs and Border Patrol for the first time in four years, according to TRAC. One significant effect the NWIPC's rising population has had on people who are detained, Benki said, is that court hearings are becoming backed up. If someone is filling out an application for asylum for example, Benki said, individual calendar hearings for it are being set for September or October. 'That's a really long time to wait for your final hearing,' Benki said. 'And when the population was lower around 700 to 800, the wait was several months shorter.' The estimates provided by Benki and La Resistencia don't line up with ICE's statistics on the facility's average daily population. According to ICE, the NWIPC had an average daily population of 834 people as of March 3, up from 709 on Jan. 6. The average daily population is calculated based on the average population during all days in the fiscal year to that point. According to TRAC, that means that if detainees are held at a location for a limited time, the average daily population might be much lower than the real number of individuals detained at that center on any given day. A spokesperson for ICE did not reply to a request for comment. Rufina Reyes, an organizer with La Resistencia, said the group tracks the number of people held at the facility by keeping in contact with detainees daily and by monitoring contracted ICE flights into and out of Boeing Field in King County. Reyes said detainees have told La Resistencia that all of the living units are full. 'Right now we know the capacity in there is really bad,' Reyes said. Detainees worry about the facility's ability to provide them medical attention, Reyes said. That issue was mentioned last week in a lawsuit brought by a longtime Washington resident who has been detained at the NWIPC since early February. Ramon Rodriguez Vasquez, whose class-action challenges the Tacoma Immigration Court's alleged refusal to consider releasing people from the facility on bond, said the facility failed to get him his daily medication for high blood pressure for more than a week. He said as a result he suffered from headaches, stomach pain and inflamed feet. Asked about staffing at the facility, Benki said her sense is that the company that runs the NWIPC, the GEO Group, didn't immediately have the number of staff it needed to have a sharp increase in the detained population. A spokesperson for the GEO Group declined to comment and directed The News Tribune to send inquiries to ICE. The GEO Group is based in Florida and operates correctional facilities around the world. Last year it reported more than $1.6 billion in revenue for its secure services operations in the United States, according to the Security and Exchange Commission. In a Feb. 27 earnings call with investors, executive chairman of GEO George Zoley said he believed the company was in a position to scale up its secure residential care housing for ICE from 15,000 beds to between 31,000 and 32,000. 'We believe our company faces an unprecedented opportunity at this time to play a role in supporting President Trump's new administration's policy,' Zoley said. The NWIPC has long faced criticism from activists and human-rights groups over its conditions for detainees, which facility administrator Bruce Scott has disputed. In an opinion piece published last year, he said the facility was safe, secure and humane. Detainees have staged hunger strikes to protest conditions and what they describe as lack of due process. On March 2, a group of 51 people detained at the NWIPC refused to eat for the day, according to La Resistencia, demanding an improvement in the facility's meals and that their cases be properly processed. Protests are planned to take place outside the NWIPC this week. The Washington State Labor Council, which represents over 600 local unions in the state, said union members and labor leaders would rally at the facility Thursday at 5:30 p.m. to protest the detentions of union members Alfredo 'Lelo' Juarez and Lewelyn Dixon. On Saturday, La Resistencia plans to rally with organizers and community members outside the NWIPC from 1-3 p.m. In a news release, the group said it would be demanding the immediate release of all migrants detained at the detention center.
CNN
25-03-2025
- Entertainment
- CNN
In Ecuador's mountains, a photographer's search for ultra-long hair
Over the past two decades, the Argentinian photographer Irina Werning has traveled around Latin America with a specific directive in mind: find women — and eventually, men — with the longest hair. Titled 'Las Pelilargas,' or 'The Long-haired Ones,' the body of work celebrates the shared cultural reverence for long tresses across the region, in both small Indigenous communities and urban centers. In her interviews with the people she met and photographed, Werning heard many personal reasons for growing and maintaining ultra-long hair, but connecting stories was often its role in cultural identity and ancestral traditions. 'The true reason is invisible and passes from generation to generation,' Werning writes on her website. 'It's the culture of Latin America, where our ancestors believed that cutting hair was cutting life, that hair is the physical manifestation of our thoughts and our souls and our connection to the land.' At the PhotoVogue festival in Milan earlier this month, Werning exhibited the final chapter in the series, called 'La Resistencia,' which features portraits of Indigenous Kichwa living in Otavalo, Ecuador. 'I was very intrigued by how it would be to photograph men after so many years of photographing women,' she explained on a phone call with CNN — particularly as long hair is often associated with femininity. Werning's extensive body of work began in the Andes. As she was photographing schools around Argentina's Indigenous Kolla community in the northwest, during her travels she encountered women with exceptionally long hair, and took their images. 'I went back to Buenos Aires, and these pictures were haunting me,' Werning recalled. 'So I decided to go back to these small towns.' In the absence of widely used social media platforms in 2006, she put up signs that said she was searching for long-haired women for artistic purposes. As she traveled to more places, she organized long-hair competitions to bring more women together. 'Slowly, the project started to grow,' she said. She completed the work in February 2024 with the images in 'La Resistencia.' In different parts of the world, braids have become powerful symbols of identity as well as defiance against colonialism and systemic racial injustice. In the Kichwa community, as in other Indigenous groups in North and South America, men and boys wear long braids to reclaim the tradition after a history of forced hair cutting during Spanish colonial rule and pressures to assimilate, Werning said. 'Braids in Indigenous communities are a form of resistance, in a way, because conquerors would cut (them),' she said. 'The braid was a symbol of identity, of unity. It's more difficult to take away someone's language, but this is a very symbolic act that's very easy to do.' In one image from 'La Resistencia,' sisters, dressed in traditional white blouses, gather at a table as their father braids their brother's hair. Werning said when the father, RUMInawi Cachimuel, was young, his family cut his braids so that he wouldn't face discrimination at school. But now, he emphasizes the importance of maintaining Kichwa traditions to his children, from their clothing and music to their hair, she explained. 'We've fought hard for our braids; it was a lengthy struggle to proudly showcase our braids,' Cachimuel told Werning in a translated interview. 'As people, we've endured significant hardships. Now, I teach my children that they must learn from our ancestors and pass down to future generations what it means to be Kichwa.' In another portrait, a father and his two boys stand in a line, braiding each other's hair, which only direct relatives are allowed to do, she explained. 'Las Pelilargas' will be published as a book later this year. As the series comes to a close, Werning says she's returned to some places she visited early on, wondering if they had been impacted by any major cultural shifts, like the rise of social media platforms. 'As a photographer, we are kind of pessimistic, (thinking) 'this is something disappearing, so I need to document it,' and in a way it's true because globalization really does change communities,' she said. But in the small towns in northern Argentina, where she first began the project, she was happy to find the opposite was true: Las pelilargas were still everywhere.
CNN
25-03-2025
- Entertainment
- CNN
In Ecuador's mountains, a photographer's search for ultra-long hair
Over the past two decades, the Argentinian photographer Irina Werning has traveled around Latin America with a specific directive in mind: find women — and eventually, men — with the longest hair. Titled 'Las Pelilargas,' or 'The Long-haired Ones,' the body of work celebrates the shared cultural reverence for long tresses across the region, in both small Indigenous communities and urban centers. In her interviews with the people she met and photographed, Werning heard many personal reasons for growing and maintaining ultra-long hair, but connecting stories was often its role in cultural identity and ancestral traditions. 'The true reason is invisible and passes from generation to generation,' Werning writes on her website. 'It's the culture of Latin America, where our ancestors believed that cutting hair was cutting life, that hair is the physical manifestation of our thoughts and our souls and our connection to the land.' At the PhotoVogue festival in Milan earlier this month, Werning exhibited the final chapter in the series, called 'La Resistencia,' which features portraits of Indigenous Kichwa living in Otavalo, Ecuador. 'I was very intrigued by how it would be to photograph men after so many years of photographing women,' she explained on a phone call with CNN — particularly as long hair is often associated with femininity. Werning's extensive body of work began in the Andes. As she was photographing schools around Argentina's Indigenous Kolla community in the northwest, during her travels she encountered women with exceptionally long hair, and took their images. 'I went back to Buenos Aires, and these pictures were haunting me,' Werning recalled. 'So I decided to go back to these small towns.' In the absence of widely used social media platforms in 2006, she put up signs that said she was searching for long-haired women for artistic purposes. As she traveled to more places, she organized long-hair competitions to bring more women together. 'Slowly, the project started to grow,' she said. She completed the work in February 2024 with the images in 'La Resistencia.' In different parts of the world, braids have become powerful symbols of identity as well as defiance against colonialism and systemic racial injustice. In the Kichwa community, as in other Indigenous groups in North and South America, men and boys wear long braids to reclaim the tradition after a history of forced hair cutting during Spanish colonial rule and pressures to assimilate, Werning said. 'Braids in Indigenous communities are a form of resistance, in a way, because conquerors would cut (them),' she said. 'The braid was a symbol of identity, of unity. It's more difficult to take away someone's language, but this is a very symbolic act that's very easy to do.' In one image from 'La Resistencia,' sisters, dressed in traditional white blouses, gather at a table as their father braids their brother's hair. Werning said when the father, RUMInawi Cachimuel, was young, his family cut his braids so that he wouldn't face discrimination at school. But now, he emphasizes the importance of maintaining Kichwa traditions to his children, from their clothing and music to their hair, she explained. 'We've fought hard for our braids; it was a lengthy struggle to proudly showcase our braids,' Cachimuel told Werning in a translated interview. 'As people, we've endured significant hardships. Now, I teach my children that they must learn from our ancestors and pass down to future generations what it means to be Kichwa.' In another portrait, a father and his two boys stand in a line, braiding each other's hair, which only direct relatives are allowed to do, she explained. 'Las Pelilargas' will be published as a book later this year. As the series comes to a close, Werning says she's returned to some places she visited early on, wondering if they had been impacted by any major cultural shifts, like the rise of social media platforms. 'As a photographer, we are kind of pessimistic, (thinking) 'this is something disappearing, so I need to document it,' and in a way it's true because globalization really does change communities,' she said. But in the small towns in northern Argentina, where she first began the project, she was happy to find the opposite was true: Las pelilargas were still everywhere.
