Latest news with #Nicaraguan
Boston Globe
2 hours ago
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Dozens rally in Boston in support of immigrant TPS holders as Trump administration moves toward removing legal status
TPS holders from Sijan Shrestha, 29, of Brighton, moved to the US from Nepal as an international student in 2014, when he was able to attain TPS status after a devastating earthquake struck Nepal in 2015. 'I'm in the mercy of DHS,' she said in an interview. Advertisement Shrestha said he works in biotechnology and feels he has contributed to the US economy through his job and by paying taxes. 'You're not the same person as you were before you get punched in the head, and it's the same thing here,' Shrestha said, noting the difficulty of returning to Nepal, where he hasn't lived since he turned 18. Shrestha said he tried to obtain legal status through other options when he saw his TPS status was threatened, but he was not selected for a work visa in the H-1B lottery system. He now hopes to attend graduate school to stay in the US a couple more years. Advertisement 'For the longest time I chose not to speak about it, there were too many questions,' he said. 'It's been a learning process for me over the years as well.' At least 17,135 TPS holders live in Massachusetts, many with children who are US citizens, according to the Honduran and Nicaraguan nationals first received TPS status in 1999 during following the destruction brought on by Hurricane Mitch. In a statement, DHS said the program was never intended to last for over a quarter century, and the impact of the natural disaster on the Central American country no longer exists. Under federal law, individuals from certain countries who are already in the US can receive TPS. The designation is given during natural disasters, civil wars, or 'extraordinary and temporary conditions,' according to Individuals under the protected status are not removable during the duration of TPS, can receive work and travel authorization, and cannot be detained by DHS on the basis of immigration status. TPS holders from Haiti, one of the At the rally, attendees held signs in support of TPS holders displaying messages like, 'Immigrants make U.S. great.' Patricia Carbajal, 46, of Revere, said she arrived in Texas in 1998 from Honduras before eventually moving to Massachusetts with her family. After 26 years living and working in the US as a single mother, Carbajal said she is facing deportation in the next two months. Advertisement 'Our lives depend on the judge's decision,' Carbajal said in Spanish, referring to the lawsuit in San Francisco. Isabel Matute, 52, who was born in El Salvador and lives in Revere, has been in the US for more than 26 years. She said she used to be a TPS holder but is now awaiting her green card after marrying a U.S. citizen. 'One has to fight for those who can't,' Matute said in Spanish. Maria Probert can be reached at
Miami Herald
21-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Miami Herald
Miss Universe Nicaragua will be crowned in Miami. Here are the 16 candidates
Sixteen candidates for Miss Universe Nicaragua took the stage in Miami on July 17, walking the runway at El Guacalito restaurant in southwest Miami. Each contestant represented one of Nicaragua's departments or autonomous regions. The evening celebration featured traditional gallo pinto, music, dancing, and national pride. Organizers announced that the final gala to crown Miss Universe Nicaragua will be held Sept. 4 at the James L. Knight Center in downtown Miami. The candidates aim to show the world that Nicaragua is ready to send a strong contender to the Miss Universe pageant in Thailand — one who can live up to Sheynnis Palacios, who made history in 2023 as the first Nicaraguan to win the Miss Universe title. This year, the Miss Universe Nicaragua organization relocated its headquarters to Miami after Emporium Agency acquired the national franchise from the international Miss Universe Organization in May. The effort was led by businessman Javier Paxtor, owner of El Guacalito and official sponsor of Miss Universe Nicaragua. Daniel Guevara, national director of Miss Universe Nicaragua and Emporium Agency, said the team is working to elevate the pageant to a new standard of excellence. 'We want to demonstrate that with vision, organization, and a dedicated team, we can deliver a world-class event that celebrates the beauty, culture, and talent of Nicaraguan women,' Guevara said. 'We are ready to make history and position this pageant among the best in the region.' A team of specialists, led by Venezuelan beauty coach and makeup artist Juan Bautista, is training the candidates for the competition. Friday's presentation opened with an appearance by Geyssell García, Miss Universe Nicaragua 2024, who will crown her successor in September. The event was hosted by Joe Palacios and Miss Nicaragua 2022, Norma Huembes. Meet the Miss Universe Nicaragua candidates Contestants must be at least 18 years old and either born in Nicaragua or have Nicaraguan parents or grandparents. Many of this year's contestants are based in Miami and have previous pageant experience. Among them is Aleida Josefa Pérez, 24, who is representing Chinandega. Pérez holds a degree in political science and international relations from the University of Florida. With both Cuban and Nicaraguan heritage, Pérez was Miss Earth Cuba 2023 and competed in Miss Universe Cuba 2024 representing Jardines del Rey. She founded the nonprofit Hearts in Mind, which has spearheaded projects including the construction of a school in Cuascoto, a village in Nicaragua's Rivas department. Massiel Córdoba Obando, representing Masaya, previously competed in Miss World Latina USA. On Instagram, she described herself as 'Pinolera, thank God,' in a post wrapped in the Nicaraguan flag. Francela Aragón Lara, 28, representing Carazo, was a candidate in Miss Teen Nicaragua 2015. Other contestants stood out for their modeling experience. Itza Castillo, representing Managua, has worked in commercials, fashion runways, and photo shoots. Nahomy Hill, 21, representing the South Caribbean Coast autonomous region, describes herself as a model. Maria Fernanda Sequeira, 18, from Boaco, also works as an international model. 'Every look tells a story, and this story is about to begin,' she captioned a post after a makeup session with stylist Julio Escudero. The rest of the candidates Alexssandra Montalván, GranadaNatalia Pedroso, JinotegaGlennys Medina Segura, RivasJhozabeth Centeno, Río San JuanLucía Oliveros, EstelíDesireé Estrada, LeónStephanie Álvarez, MatagalpaYaribeth Gutiérrez, Nueva SegoviaAlieska González, Chontales One candidate, Starina Jérez, representing the Caribbean Coast, was absent from the runway presentation. Her 21-year-old sister, Venus Angelina, died unexpectedly in Miami on July 9. Starina and Venus are daughters of opposition leader and former political prisoner Irlanda Jérez. 'Selecting these 16 women was not easy,' said Bautista, who is also the event's creative director. 'The competition is fierce. We had a large pool of highly qualified candidates, and our goal between now and September is to ensure the most prepared woman wins — because she will be the queen of all Nicaragua.' Venezuelan Dayra Lambis, the 1999 International Coffee Queen, is coaching the candidates on mastering the runway. 'We're celebrating not only their beauty but also their resilience,' Lambis said. 'These young women represent the light, culture, and essence of Nicaragua. They've done an incredible job.' Miami has also become a hub for other pageant activity. On July 8, Lina Luaces — daughter of Lili Estefan and niece of Emilio and Gloria Estefan — was crowned Miss Universe Cuba at Milander Park in Hialeah. Telemundo is also searching for a Latina representative from the United States for the Thailand Miss Universe pageant through its reality series Miss Universe Latina. To learn more about the Miss Universe Nicaragua candidates, visit
Boston Globe
19-07-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Today in History: The Seneca Falls Convention
Advertisement In 1848, the first 'Convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of Woman' convened at the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, N.Y. In 1969, Apollo 11 and its astronauts —Neil Armstrong, Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin, and Michael Collins —went into orbit around the moon. In 1975, the Apollo and Soyuz space capsules that were linked in orbit for two days separated. In 1979, the Nicaraguan capital of Managua fell to Sandinista guerrillas, two days after President Anastasio Somoza fled the country. In 1980, the Moscow Summer Olympics began, minus dozens of nations that were boycotting the games because of Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan. In 1989, 111 people were killed when United Air Lines Flight 232, a DC-10 which sustained the uncontained failure of its tail engine and the loss of hydraulic systems, crashed while making an emergency landing at Sioux City, Iowa; 185 other people survived. Advertisement In 1990, baseball's all-time hits leader, Pete Rose, was sentenced in Cincinnati to five months in prison for tax evasion. In 1993, President Bill Clinton announced a policy allowing gays to serve in the military under a compromise dubbed 'don't ask, don't tell, don't pursue.' In 2006, prosecutors reported that Chicago police beat, kicked, shocked, or otherwise tortured scores of Black suspects from the 1970s to the early 1990s to try to extract confessions from them. In 2005, President George W. Bush announced his choice of federal appeals court judge John G. Roberts Jr. to replace Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. (Roberts ended up succeeding Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who died in September 2005; Samuel Alito followed O'Connor.) In 2013, in a rare and public reflection on race, President Barack Obama called on the nation to do some soul searching over the death of Trayvon Martin and the acquittal of his shooter, George Zimmerman, saying the slain Black teenager 'could have been me 35 years ago.' In 2018, a duck boat packed with tourists capsized and sank in high winds on a lake in the tourist town of Branson, Missouri, killing 17 people. In 2021, Paul Allard Hodgkins, a Florida man who breached the U.S. Senate chamber on Jan. 6, 2021, carrying a Trump campaign flag, received an eight-month prison term in the first resolution of a felony case arising from the US Capitol insurrection. (In 2025, President Donald Trump pardoned, commuted the prison sentences, or vowed to dismiss the cases of all 1,500-plus people charged with crimes in the riot.) Advertisement In 2022, Britain
NBC News
18-07-2025
- Politics
- NBC News
Some immigrants want to self-deport but they're hitting roadblocks and confusion
The Trump administration has been urging immigrants without legal immigration status to self-deport, with video and radio messages by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem telling them: "Leave now — if you don't, we will find you and deport you." But a number of immigrants and their attorneys told Noticias Telemundo that they're not getting the documents and the guidance they need, and haven't been able to leave. 'I felt sad, honestly,' Jairo Sequeira said about his failed attempt to return to his home country of Nicaragua. He said he tried to self-deport at the end of May and filled out the voluntary departure form through the CBP Home app. Sequeira was turned away, he said, because he didn't have a Nicaraguan passport, which was taken when he surrendered in 2021 to immigration authorities in El Paso, Texas, after entering the U.S. 'I never thought that would happen at the airport,' said Sequeira, whose suitcase still has a Nicaragua-bound sticker. 'I was always in touch [with my family], telling them, 'I'll arrive at such and such a time,' excited.' After using the CBP Home app, he received an email, which he showed Noticias Telemundo. 'Thank you for submitting your intention to depart the United States voluntarily. Your submission has been confirmed,' it said. Sequeira printed it out and took with him on his trip three days later. He traveled from Georgia to Texas to catch a plane to Nicaragua. But when he arrived at the gate, an airline employee told him he couldn't fly without his Nicaraguan passport. Sequeira explained that both his passport and Nicaraguan national identity card were taken by U.S. immigration authorities. Though he showed the agent the CBP Home email he got, he wasn't allowed to fly home. In response to questions from Noticias Telemundo, a Department of Homeland Security official stated in an e-mail that 'tens of thousands of immigrants' have used the CBP Home app to self-deport. They didn't provide an exact number or answer specific questions about the process. Announced in early March, CBP Home is part of the Project Homecoming program, through which the Trump administration offers undocumented immigrants two options: leave voluntarily with the promise of government support and financial assistance, or 'stay and face the process." Sequeira said that when he decided to self-deport, he asked a community organization in Atlanta, Georgia, for help filling out the form on the CBP Home app. Sequeira doesn't know if the person in Atlanta who helped him fill out the information indicated online that Sequeira needed help with his passport and ID. With his own savings, he bought the plane ticket home. Sequeira said he didn't know how to recover the documents he gave to officials at the border and added that, at least until July 8, he had tried to get his passport replaced through attorneys in Nicaragua. But the attorneys back home asked Sequeira for his national identity card, which was also taken when he entered the country, he said. Noticias Telemundo contacted United Airlines — the airline Sequeira was supposed to travel on — but in a brief email response, the company referred questions to Customs and Border Protection. CBP then referred Noticias Telemundo to the Department of Homeland Security, which did not respond to specific questions. In an email, it indicated that foreign nationals seeking voluntary departure 'through the CBP Home application may be eligible to receive financial assistance for their departure.' They also stated that, if requested, the U.S. government will assist them in booking tickets and/or obtaining necessary travel documents. DHS did not explain what this assistance entails nor what happens to immigrants whose passports were withheld by U.S. immigration authorities or who have been unable to renew or replace their identification documents. The DHS official also did not respond to questions about how many people have registered to self-deport and are waiting to return to their countries. According to information on the app's website, those who register on the app are assigned a departure date approximately 21 days after signing up. However, it's unclear what happens if an immigrant decides to leave before that deadline, or how long the process may take. In early May, Trump directed Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to take the necessary actions to facilitate 'the rapid departure' of those who 'do not have a valid travel document from their country of citizenship or nationality or who wish to travel to any other country willing to accept their entry." Regarding a $1,000 'exit bonus,' DHS states on its website that immigrants will receive it after confirming they have left the U.S. and landed in another country. It also says that a bank account is not required and that 'the delivery method will vary depending on the guidelines and regulations of the specific country.' 'I want to go to Nicaragua' Titza Escobar didn't know how to self-deport, but believed that if she turned herself in at a police station in Miami, Florida, she would be sent back to her home country of Nicaragua. Escobar said she sought help from different places, including the police, a United States Citizenship and Immigration Services center and an Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office, but didn't get the assistance she needed. 'There are many people who don't want to leave, but when I wanted to leave, they didn't take me,' said Escobar, who is originally from an Indigenous community in the Nicaraguan Caribbean and whose native language is Miskito. Escobar said she was told she needed documents to be able to leave the country, but the 29-year-old mother of three children has never had documents nor a passport. Escobar was crying outside the ICE field office in the city of Miramar when a group of activists found her and were able to provide help. 'She was completely in a situation of extreme vulnerability. She didn't have a single dollar; she spent her last bit of money paying someone to take her to Miramar,' said Karla de Anda, an activist with The Right to Freedom Network who, along with María Bilbao of the American Friends Service Committee in Florida, provided Escobar with food and temporary shelter and also assisted her in completing the application form at CBP Home. Bilbao accompanied Escobar to the Nicaraguan consulate in Miami — one of three remaining Nicaraguan consulates in the U.S. — where they agreed to help Escobar obtain safe passage home, after she told them she had suffered domestic abuse while in the U.S. and presented a police report detailing that her husband threatened to kill her. According to Bilbao, Escobar was told that a safe-conduct permit can take 15 days to obtain, a passport up to four months, and that it's a process immigrants must complete in person. Escobar is presently waiting to receive what she needs to return home. For some Nicaraguans, applying for a passport or renewal is no guarantee of obtaining one: independent media and human rights organizations have reported dozens of cases in which the process has been denied or indefinitely delayed within Nicaragua or at consulates abroad, especially for opponents of the current government and sometimes their families. For immigrants from countries like Venezuela — which doesn't have consulates in the U.S. after a severing of diplomatic relations — the situation is even more complex. 'People are distrustful' Christina Wilkes, an immigration attorney in Maryland and Washington, D.C., told Noticias Telemundo she had a client who wanted to self-deport but was 'terrified' of using the CBP Home app and of being deported before he could leave voluntarily, so he sold his business and bought his plane ticket to Mexico. Another client had a passport, but his wife and children, who are Venezuelan and have been in the U.S. under Temporary Protected Status, don't have passports. 'And that's the problem: you can't get Venezuelan passports in the United States,' Wilkes said, adding that her client will try to naturalize the children in the Dominican Republic, where he is originally from, and obtain documents from that country for them. The self-deportation process through CBP Home is very new and unclear, Wilkes said. 'I think that because people are distrustful; most of the people who are leaving are leaving quietly, and without using the app.' Unlike them, Juhany Pina used the app when she decided to self-deport. After a month of waiting for instructions, authorities assigned her a travel date, but she said they never called her again. Instead, the Venezuela native used her Mexican passport — she had lived there before coming to the U.S. — and managed to board a plane to Mexico in early July. Pina said she's part of a WhatsApp group with more than 100 members where immigrants like her share the setbacks they've experienced during the self-deportation process. 'We thought it would be a much faster process,' Pina said.
Miami Herald
13-07-2025
- Politics
- Miami Herald
Hundreds at Alligator Alcatraz have no criminal charges or convictions, records show
Hundreds of immigrants with no criminal charges in the United States have ended up at Alligator Alcatraz, a detention facility that state and federal officials have characterized as a place where 'vicious' and 'deranged psychopaths' are sent before they get deported, records obtained by the Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times show. Mixed among the facility's detainees accused and convicted of crimes are over 250 people who are listed as having only immigration violations but no criminal convictions or pending charges in the United States. The data is based on a list of more than 700 people who are detained at the facility or appear to be scheduled to be sent there. A third of the detainees have criminal convictions. Their charges can range from attempted murder to illegal re-entry to traffic violations. Hundreds of others only have pending charges. The records do not disclose the nature of the alleged offenses, and reporters have not independently examined each individual's case. The information — which is subject to change as the population of the facility fluctuates — suggests that scores of migrants without criminal records have been targeted in the dragnet deployed by state and federal law enforcement to catch and deport immigrants living illegally in the state of Florida. Is your client or family member being held at Alligator Alcatraz? Click here to see the list Nationally, nearly half of detainees in ICE custody as of late June were being held for immigration violations and did not have a criminal conviction or charge, according to data from Syracuse University. Polls have shown that American voters support the deportation of criminals but are less supportive of the arrest and detention of otherwise law-abiding undocumented immigrants. South Florida's congressional representatives have called on the Trump administration to be more compassionate in its efforts to round up and deport immigrants with status issues. 'That place is supposedly for the worst criminals in the U.S.,' said Walter Jara, the nephew of a 56-year-old Nicaraguan man taken to the facility following a traffic stop. The list states his uncle, Denis Alcides Solis Morales, has immigration violations and makes no mention of convictions or pending criminal charges. Jara said that he arrived here legally under a humanitarian parole program, and has a pending asylum case. Reporters sent the list to officials at the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In a statement, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the absence of a criminal charge in the United States doesn't mean migrants detained at the site have clean hands. 'Many of the individuals that are counted as 'non-criminals' are actually terrorists, human rights abusers, gangsters and more; they just don't have a rap sheet in the U.S.,' McLaughlin told the Herald/Times. 'Further, every single one of these individuals committed a crime when they came into this country illegally. It is not an accurate description to say they are 'non-criminals.'' McLaughlin said the Trump administration is 'putting the American people first by removing illegal aliens who pose a threat to our communities' and said '70% of ICE arrests have been of criminal illegal aliens with convictions or pending charges.' She added that the state of Florida oversees the facility, not ICE, an argument echoed in court by Thomas P. Giles, a top official involved in enforcement and removal operations. 'The ultimate decision of who to detain' at Alligator Alcatraz 'belongs to Florida,' he wrote as part of the federal government's response to a lawsuit challenging the detention facility on environmental grounds. A spokesperson for ICE referred reporters to Florida's Division of Emergency Management, which oversees the detention facility. Florida's DEM did not respond to a request for comment. Mixed population The records offer a glimpse into who is inside the detention facility. The network of trailers and tents, built on an airstrip off of U.S. Highway 41, has been operating for a little over a week. It is already housing about 750 immigrant detainees, a figure that state officials shared with Democratic state Sen. Carlos Guillermo-Smith, one of several Florida lawmakers who toured the site on Saturday afternoon. Records show detainees are from roughly 40 countries around the world. Immigrants from Mexico, Guatemala and Cuba made up about half the list. Ages range from 18 to 73. One is listed as being from the United States. Reporters were unable to locate his family or attorney. Inside the facility, lawmakers who were there Saturday said they who were there Saturday said they saw detainees wearing wristbands, which state officials explained were meant to classify the severity of their civil or criminal violations. The colors included yellow, orange and red — with yellow being less severe infractions and red meaning more severe offenses, said state Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando. When the detention facility opened on July 1, President Donald Trump visited the site and said it would soon house 'some of the most vicious people on the planet.' The state, which has refused to make public a roster of detainees at the site, has released selective information about who is being detained at Alligator Alcatraz. On Friday, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier's office released the names of six men convicted of crimes to Fox News, and later to the Herald/Times upon request. The charges against the men — all included on the list obtained by the Herald/Times — ranged from murder to burglary. 'This group of murderers, rapists, and gang members are just a small sample of the deranged psychopaths that Florida is helping President Trump and his administration remove from our country,' Uthmeier's spokesman, Jeremy Redfern, said in a statement. One of those men is Jose Fortin, a 46-year-old from Honduras who was arrested in 2017 on attempted murder charges. Records show Fortin was deported to his home country in August 2019. A month later, he re-entered the country illegally. Border patrol agents picked him up in Texas. Gov. Ron DeSantis and President Donald Trump have said the detention center is creating more space to house undocumented immigrants who otherwise would have to be released due to a lack of beds. Another man, Luis Donaldo Corado, was convicted of burglary and petty theft after he was accused of being a 'peeping tom' — watching a woman through her apartment window in Coral Gables. And Eddy Lopez Jemot — a 57-year-old Cuban man — was accused of killing a woman and setting her house on fire in Key Largo in 2017. The state dropped homicide charges against him in a plea deal this year and convicted him of arson. But other detainees have lesser charges — such as traffic violations, according to attorneys and family members. An attorney told the Herald/Times her client was detained by federal immigration agents after a routine-check in at an ICE field office. Some are asylum seekers. Solís Morales, the 56-year-old Nicaraguan, for instance, ended up in Alligator Alcatraz after he was unexpectedly detained on his way to a construction job in Palm Beach County on July 1, according to Jara, his nephew. He was a passenger in a Ford F-150 when the driver was pulled over by the Florida Highway Patrol for an unsecured load, Jara told the Herald/Times on Saturday. Solís Morales arrived in the United States from Nicaragua in 2023 under humanitarian parole and has a pending asylum case, Jara said. Miami immigration attorney Regina de Moraes said she's representing a Brazilian national being held at Alligator Alcatraz who entered the United States lawfully on a tourist visa in 2022 and then applied for asylum, which is pending. She said the Brazilian, 37, who has a five-year work permit and owns a solar panel business in the Orlando area, was arrested on a DUI charge in 2024. While he was attending a probation hearing on June 3, he was detained by the Orange County Sheriff's office, which is participating in a federal immigration program known as 287(g). He was transferred from there to Alligator Alcatraz on Thursday, according to information provided to her by the Brazilian's sister. De Moraes, a seasoned immigration lawyer, said she doesn't understand why the Brazilian man was transferred to the state-operated detention facility in the Everglades. She asked the Herald/Times not to identify her client. 'He's not subject to mandatory detention and he's not subject to removal because he has a pending asylum application,' de Moraes told the Herald/Times on Friday. 'He has one DUI and he's not a threat to others. This is ridiculous. This is a waste of time and money. ... He's not the kind of person they should be picking up.' 'They should be picking up people with sexual battery or armed robbery records,' de Moraes said. Miami Herald reporters Siena Duncan, Milena Malaver, Churchill Ndonwie and Jay Weaver, and el Nuevo Herald reporter Antonio Maria Delgado contributed to this report.
