Latest news with #LatinosforTrump
Yahoo
19 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
What to know about Héctor Luis Valdés Cocho, Cuban activist who might be deported
In June 2025, a claim (archived) circulated online that the Cuban-born "Latinos for Trump" leader and activist Héctor Luis Valdés Cocho was arrested by U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement and was awaiting deportation. Womp inPoliticalHumor A Reddit post included an image that read: "'Latinos for Trump' leader Hector Luis Valdes Cocho, a Cuban activist who rallied others to vote for Trump, was picked up by ICE and is in a detention center waiting to be deported." The claim also appeared on Facebook (archived), X (archived), Threads (archived), Instagram (archived), Bluesky (archived) and TikTok (archived) dating to February (archived) 2025 (archived). Snopes readers messaged us about claims surrounding the arrest of Valdés starting in February. According to the ICE's Online Detainee Locator System, a Hector Luis Valdes-Cocho born in Cuba was in ICE custody at Otay Mesa Detention Center in California at the time of this writing. Snopes was unable to view the details of Valdés' immigration case without his alien registration number (also known as an A-Number), which is not generally publicly available information. Therefore, it was not possible to confirm whether Valdés was facing deportation at the time of this writing. ICE detains people for reasons including "to ensure their presence for immigration proceedings, to facilitate removals to their countries of citizenship, and to protect public safety." Furthermore, though popular online claims said Valdés was a leader in the Latinos for Trump campaign movement, we found no credible reports linking him to this particular group (archived, archived, archived, archived). Valdés' Facebook and Instagram accounts were inactive at the time of this writing, so they could not provide additional information about his political activities. We reached out to ICE for any information it could provide about the status of Valdés' immigration case and potential deportation. We also reached out to the former co-chairs of Latinos for Trump, Jeanette M. Nuñez and Margarita Paláu-Hernández, to ask if they could confirm or deny Valdés' involvement with the group. We await replies to our queries. ICE's locator system did not include a picture of the Hector Luis Valdes-Cocho the agency detained. CiberCuba, an online newspaper founded by Cuban expatriates, said that the person detained by ICE in California (and previously Florida) was the same person who featured in the claims in this article. When asked about the authenticity of a mug shot (archived) showing Valdés during an arrest in November 2024, a spokesperson for Orange County, Florida, jail told Snopes they were prohibited under federal law from disclosing or otherwise permitting to be made public "the name or other information relating to ICE inmates," further indicating that the Valdés arrested in November 2024 was the same person detained by ICE at the time of this writing. Valdés was a journalist and anti-government activist in Cuba before he was forced into exile in January 2022. It was unclear when and how he arrived in the U.S. In April 2024, Partido del Pueblo, a self-described right-wing political party founded to counter the Communist Party of Cuba, posted (archived) a picture on Instagram of Valdés holding a Trump 2024 banner and said it was taken in Michigan. It was also unclear at the time of this writing exactly how Valdés ended up in ICE detention. In November 2024, CiberCuba reported that Valdés was arrested by Orange County sheriff's deputies in Florida. The report referenced a mug shot of Valdés from a Facebook page that reposts mug shots from Orange County. CiberCuba's report said the arrest was for failure to appear in a traffic violation case. A spokesperson for the Orange County Sheriff's Office said it carried out the arrest on an out-of-county warrant. We contacted the Osceola County Sheriff's Office on the Orange County department's recommendation to ask what the warrant was for. At the time of his arrest, multiple Cuban journalists and activists accused Valdés of failing to repay loans, according to CiberCuba. It was unclear whether any of the accusations led to criminal charges or, in turn, to ICE detention. Then, in February 2025, CiberCuba reported that it found Valdés on ICE's online detainee locator detained in Florida. It was unclear when ICE moved Valdés to California, where the locator said he was detained at the time of this writing. News of Valdés' ICE detention came as the Trump administration paused and aimed to terminate a number of humanitarian parole programs, including one for nationals of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. In May 2025, the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to pause the program, and with it the short-term lawful status granted to citizens of the named countries under the program, making them deportable. It was unclear whether Valdés gained lawful status in the U.S. under the CHNV program and whether he was affected by the Trump administration's pause. The program grants short-term lawful status to successful applicants, usually around two years, which would have expired by 2025. "Amnesty International Names Prisoners of Conscience in Cuba." Amnesty International, 19 Aug. 2021, "CPJ Welcomes El Salvador's Acceptance of 2 Journalists Expelled from Cuba." Committee to Protect Journalists, 6 Jan. 2022, "Cuba." United States Department of State, Accessed 11 June 2025. "Cuban Héctor Luis Valdés Cocho Is in ICE Custody in Florida." CiberCuba, 1 Feb. 2025, Derby, Kevin. "Mike Pence, Jeanette Nuñez Launch Latinos for Trump." Florida Daily, 25 June 2019, Detain | ICE. 17 Aug. 2020, Echavarri, Fernanda. "Latinos for Trump Co-Chair Boasts of a Country That 'Has Opened Doors.'" Mother Jones, Accessed 11 June 2025. "El Partido Del Pueblo ." Facebook, "Héctor Luis Valdés Cocho" and "Latinos for Trump" - Google Search. Accessed 11 June 2025. "Héctor Luis Valdés Cocho" and "Latinos for Trump" - Search News. Accessed 11 June 2025. "Héctor Luis Valdés Cocho" and "Latinos for Trump" - Yahoo Search Results. Accessed 11 June 2025. "Héctor Luis Valdés Cocho" and "Latinos for Trump" at DuckDuckGo. Accessed 11 June 2025. "Héctor Luis Valdés Cocho Arrested in the U.S. amid Scandal over Scams." CiberCuba, 22 Nov. 2024, Litigation-Related Update: Supreme Court Stay of CHNV Preliminary Injunction | USCIS. 6 June 2025, Online Detainee Locator System. Accessed 11 June 2025. Orange County Mugshots. "VALDESCOCHO, HECTOR LUIS." Facebook, 20 Nov. 2025, @pdpcuba. "Nuestro Consejero de Seguridad Héctor Luis Valdés Cocho Desde Michigan." Instagram, 24 Apr. 2022, Schmidt, Samantha. "Cuba's Internet Comes Back on — and Reveals Scenes of a Crackdown." The Washington Post, 14 June 2021, "Securing Our Borders." The White House, 21 Jan. 2025, Totenberg, Nina. "Supreme Court Allows Trump Administration to End Humanitarian Status for Some Migrants." NPR, 30 May 2025. NPR,
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Latinas for Trump co-founder criticizes president's immigration arrests: ‘Unacceptable and inhumane'
A co-founder of a group for Latinas who support Donald Trump has excoriated the president on some of the immigration-related arrests being carried out by his administration, which she called 'unacceptable and inhumane'. In a statement posted on X over the weekend, Ileana Garcia wrote: 'This is not what we voted for.' The post from the Florida state senator asserted that she had supported Trump, her fellow Republican, 'through thick and thin' and understood the need to remove from the US undocumented people who had committed crimes. But she criticized how federal authorities had arrested people at immigration courts across the country despite 'credible fear of persecution claims' as the Trump White House ramped up his mass deportation campaign after his second presidency began in January. Referring to Stephen Miller, Trump's homeland security adviser and deputy chief of staff, Garcia said: 'What we are witnessing are arbitrary measures to hunt down people who are complying with their immigration hearings … all driven by a Miller-like desire to satisfy a self-fabricated deportation goal. 'This undermines the sense of fairness and justice that the American people value.' Garcia's statement expressed solidarity with comments issued Friday by another Florida Republican: US House member Maria Elvira Salazar. In a statement, Salazar said the Trump administration's policies had exposed thousands to deportation and seemed to disregard for the 'duty to due process that every democracy must guarantee'. Salazar's statement added that those with pending asylum claims deserved 'to go through the legal process' while urging the Trump administration to stay focused on removing 'every criminal here illegally'. Garcia alluded to how she represents Salazar's congressional district in Florida's state senate and said her Cuban refugee parents are 'now just as American, if not more so, than Stephen Miller'. 'I am deeply disappointed by these actions,' Garcia's statement said. 'And I will not stand down.' Garcia's remarks are not the first time she has gotten cross with the Trump administration. She served as a deputy press secretary for the US homeland security department during Trump's first presidency before leaving the post in March 2019, ahead of his defeat in the 2020 election to Joe Biden and her joining the Florida state senate. During his unsuccessful 2020 run, Trump's campaign launched its own official Hispanic outreach coalition and delivered multiple cease and desist letters threatening legal action against the Latinos for Trump organization who had supported his victorious first presidential run, as ABC News reported at the time. The Latinas for Trump organization that Garcia helped establish was affiliated with that group, and she said she was stunned to learn of the cease and desist letters in question. Garcia accused the Trump administration of having 'refused to embrace surrogates from the Latino community who did the real groundwork, took the bullets, took the insults and lost their jobs' as he ascended to the presidency. 'It's actually quite disappointing,' she said then. Trump won the Florida vote in each of his three presidential campaigns. His Mar-a-Lago resort is in the state as well.
Yahoo
04-02-2025
- Yahoo
Photo Purporting to Show ICE Detaining a Trump Supporter Is Altered
A viral photo shows a man in a 'Latinos for Trump' T-shirt being arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers. 'DID THIS REALLY HAPPEN?' asks one version of the post with more than 78,000 likes on Instagram. 'How ironic,' says another. The photo is altered: The arrestee's T-shirt and the ICE patches on the officers' uniforms have been edited into the image. The original version of the photo was taken by ICE on June 19, 2018, in Salem, Ohio. It depicts officers of the agency's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) unit apprehending several undocumented workers during a raid at Fresh Mark, a meat processing company. In the photo, the arrestee's gray T-shirt has no writing on the back, and the officers' vests read 'POLICE HSI.' This differs from the now viral version, in which the arrestee's shirt reads 'LATINOS FOR TRUMP 2024' and the officers' vests read 'POLICE ICE'. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Ohio, HSI agents detained 146 workers at the plant who were subject to arrest for immigration violations. Following the arrests, Fresh Mark agreed to pay a $3.7 million penalty in connection with identity theft and obstruction offenses by one of its hiring managers, who had used stolen information from U.S. citizens to falsely verify employment eligibility for undocumented immigrant workers. If you have a claim you would like to see us fact check, please send us an email at factcheck@ If you would like to suggest a correction to this piece or any other Dispatch article, please email corrections@
USA Today
30-01-2025
- Politics
- USA Today
Doctored image shows ICE arresting man wearing 'Latinos for Trump' T-shirt
The claim: Image shows ICE arresting man wearing 'Latinos for Trump' shirt A Jan. 28 Instagram post (direct link, archive link) appears to show three Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers escorting a man with bound wrists wearing a shirt that reads 'Latinos for Trump 2024" on it. 'Be careful what you wish for,' the post's caption reads. The post received more than 1,000 likes in a day. Similar versions also circulated widely on Instagram. More from the Fact-Check Team: How we pick and research claims | Email newsletter | Facebook page Our rating: Manipulated media The image, which was published in 2018, was digitally edited to add the slogan to the man's shirt and to change the acronym on the agents' vests. No slogan on man's shirt in original image from 2018 President Donald Trump marked the start of his second term by following through on the crackdown on immigration he promised during the campaign, with an increasing number of raids across the U.S. targeting those in the country illegally. ICE, which is publicizing its daily totals, has arrested more than 4,500 people since Jan. 23, USA TODAY reported. The man shown in the Instagram image, however, is not part of that tally. That image predates the current immigration actions by six years and was doctored to add the pro-Trump slogan to his shirt. Fact check: No, Biden, Harris didn't spend hurricane relief FEMA funds on immigrants The original image was published by Getty Images in June 2018 with a caption crediting it to an ICE photographer and indicating it shows Homeland Security Investigations agents arresting people at the Fresh Mark meat processing plant in Salem, Ohio. In the image, the back of the man's shirt is blank and the acronym shown on the agents' vests reads 'HSI' not 'ICE.' Other elements visible in both images, including the white pickup truck and the procession of other detainees in the background, are identical. According to a statement from ICE at the time, 146 employees were arrested following a yearlong HSI investigation into allegations the company hired immigrants in the country illegally, with some of them accused of using false identification. Fresh Mark was fined $3.7 million in December 2024 after it entered into a non-prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors and its hiring manager pleaded guilty to charges of identity theft and making false statements on immigration forms. USA TODAY previously debunked false claims that ICE offered a $750 reward for reporting 'illegal immigrants' through a tip line and that an executive order from former President Joe Biden granted citizenship to 1 million immigrants in the country illegally. USA TODAY reached out to multiple Instagram users who shared the image. One of the users told USA TODAY he did not think it was authentic when he shared it. Snopes and AFP also debunked the claim. Our fact-check sources Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or e-newspaper here. USA TODAY is a verified signatory of the International Fact-Checking Network, which requires a demonstrated commitment to nonpartisanship, fairness and transparency. Our fact-check work is supported in part by a grant from Meta.
Yahoo
29-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Fact Check: Photo of ICE Agents Arresting Man Wearing 'Latinos for Trump' T-Shirt Is Fake
Claim: A photo authentically shows U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arresting a man wearing a "Latinos for Trump 2024" T-shirt. Rating: A rumor circulating online in January 2025 claimed a photo showed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arresting a man whose shirt displayed a logo reading, "Latinos for Trump 2024." Users shared the rumor in the first several days of President Donald Trump's second term in office, as federal agents carried out the new administration's mass deportation plans. One X user's post (archived) from Jan. 27 displaying the image received over 1 million views. We located other shares of the photo from users on Instagram, Threads and X. Another X user captioned (archived) the picture sarcastically to mock the man in the picture, purportedly for voting Trump back into the White House. However, the picture had been doctored by an unknown user with the "Latinos for Trump 2024" logo. The same user altered the agents' uniforms to read "ICE," when the original picture showed "HSI" for Homeland Security Investigations. ICE and HSI both operate under the umbrella of the Department of Homeland Security. The Alamy and Getty Images websites both hosted the original, unedited photo for licensing. The genuine caption read, "U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) special agents arrested alleged immigration violators at Fresh Mark [in] Salem, [Ohio, on] June 19, 2018." There was no writing on the detained man's T-shirt. ICE published the original photo. (Image courtesy of Getty Images) As The Associated Press has reported based on its own survey of over 120,000 voters, Trump gained a larger share of both Black and Latino voters in 2024 than in the 2020 election, most notably among men under age 45. Regarding the new Trump administration's progress in its plans for mass deportations, on Jan. 28, The AP reported ICE agents had crossed over a threshold of 1,000 daily arrests of immigrants residing in the U.S. illegally, after averaging only around 300 a day just months before during President Joe Biden's administration. "If sustained, those numbers would mark the highest daily average since ICE began keeping records," the AP said. For further reading, we previously reported the facts about a rumor shared by Fox News TV host Harris Faulkner, who misleadingly claimed Tom Homan, Trump's "border czar," located 75,000 to 80,000 "missing" migrant children out of a purported total of over 300,000. Brown, Matt, et al. "Young Black and Latino Men Say They Chose Trump Because of the Economy and Jobs. Here's How and Why." The Associated Press, 10 Nov. 2024, Catalini, Mike, and Rebecca Santana. "Just Days into the New Trump Administration, Worries Spike amid a Show of Force on Immigration." The Associated Press, 24 Jan. 2025, Chappell, Bill. "Homeland Security Secretary Orders ICE to Stop Mass Raids on Immigrants' Workplaces." Connecticut Public, 12 Oct. 2021, Santana, Rebecca. "Immigration Officers Are Operating with a New Sense of Mission. Now, 'Nobody Gets a Free Pass.'" The Associated Press, 28 Jan. 2025, "U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Special Agents Arrested Alleged Immigration Violators at Fresh Mark [in] Salem, [Ohio, on] June 19, 2018." Getty Images, ICE, 19 June 2018, Younge, Gary. "'They Want to Take Me Away': Immigrants under Attack as Trump Tries to Rally Republican Base." The Guardian, 23 Oct. 2018,
