Latest news with #Vargas
Yahoo
13 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
Gov. Pritzker awards Medal of Honor to Rockford Police officer
ROCKFORD, Ill. (WTVO) — Rockford Police Officer Jon Vargas was awarded the Law Enforcement Medal of Honor from Gov. JB Pritzker and Illinois State Police Director Brendan Kelly on Thursday. The Medal of Honor is awarded to officers who performed acts of heroism. Officer Vargas lost his former K9 partner, Nyx, in a shooting on January 28th, 2024. According to police, Malik Trotter, 28, shot and killed the K9 during a police pursuit that ended in the 2900 block of 11th Street. Police were able to track a phone to an 11th Street address. K9 Officer Jon Vargas spotted Trotter and a foot chase ensued, during which K9 Nyx was shot and killed. Trotter allegedly shot at Vargas, and was shot in the leg by returned fire. In April, the police department announced Vargas would partner with a new 2-year-old Dutch Shepherd-Belgian Malinois mix, named . Twenty-three officers from 10 police agencies were honored in Springfield today. 'Today, we pay tribute to our heroic police officers who have gone above and beyond the call of duty while protecting our communities,' said Pritzker. 'From Palatine to Chicago to Granite City, our honorees saved lives and offered comfort and support to countless others. While we will never be able to repay their bravery in full, we hope that this recognition can serve as a public reminder of our gratitude and a symbol of the sincere reverence we hold them in.' The 2024 recipients for the Law Enforcement Medal of Honor being honored this year are: Chicago Police Department Officer Roy De La Huerta Officer Michelle Drapala Officer Edwin J. Gramajo Officer Luis M. Huesca Officer Omar Jimenez Officer Carlos Martinez Officer Enrique Martinez Chillicothe Police Department Officer David J. Buchanan Cicero Police Department Officer Luis Martinez Officer Reynol Ramos DeKalb County Sheriff's Office Deputy Christina M. Musil DeKalb Police Department Officer Brian Bollow Chief David Byrd Sergeant Keunte Mallett East Moline Police Department Sergeant William R. Lind Granite City Police Department Officer Douglas B. Nicoson Illinois State Police Trooper Clay M. Carns Trooper Adam D. FittsMaster Sergeant Ross A. Green Trooper Corey S. Thompsen Trooper Blake D. Thompson Palatine Police Department Officer Shane P. Murray Rockford Police Department Officer Jonathan A. Vargas Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Onion
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Onion
Whole Flight Spent Reading ‘War And Peace' Over Shoulder Of Passenger Ahead
CHICAGO—After forgetting to bring sufficient entertainment for the two-hour flight from Atlanta to O'Hare Airport, area man Kenneth Vargas reportedly spent his entire time aboard a plane Thursday reading War And Peace over the shoulder of the passenger seated in the row ahead of him. 'I felt like an idiot for not downloading any books on my Kindle, but when I noticed the guy in front of me was reading something, I figured I could just look off of his,' Vargas said of the man's print copy of Leo Tolstoy's roughly 1,300-page seminal Russian epic. 'While I really didn't know who all the characters were, I think I mostly got the gist of it. At first I was just casually reading to amuse myself, but now I'm honestly kind of invested. During drink service I missed a couple pages, so I'm not exactly sure what happened with Natasha Rostova. I think I can pretty much fill in the blanks, though.' As he exited the aircraft, Vargas confirmed he was disappointed the flight had ended before he had time to finish the novel.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
‘She needs specialized care': 4-year-old girl faces deportation amid battle with medical condition
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) — 'She likes to travel, she likes to go to the supermarket,' said Deysi Vargas, Sofia's mom. What might seem like normal activities, are a whole new experience for this little four-year-old. For her first three years, a life-threatening condition kept her inside the walls of hospitals all day, every day. 'My daughter was born with a syndrome in the intestines and she needs specialized care to survive,' said Vargas. 'Sofia is connected 14 hours at night. During the day, its four times…its a gastro-tube which lasts for one hour.' When doctors in Mexico couldn't help, Vargas knew she needed to do more to save her daughter's life. 'She applied to enter the United States to get better treatment for her daughter, and waited until that application was granted before coming here,' said Rebecca Brown, Sofia's lawyer. 4 people hospitalized after truck collides with school bus near Shafter Vargas' daughter found a specialized team in a Los Angeles children's hospital, and was finally able to leave the hospital with a feeding system she carries as a backpack. The family found a home in Bakersfield, but in April everything changed for them. 'In the last few months we received letters from immigration cancelling our humanitarian parole and my work permit,' said Vargas. 'In these letters they tell us that we run the risk of being deported and the best thing that we should do is to leave.' That might be a death sentence for this little one, as the feeding system that keeps her alive is not available in Mexico. The family has set up a GoFundMe and you can click here to donate. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
4-year-old girl's life-saving treatment at risk after family's legal immigration status is revoked
A Mexican girl is at risk of losing access to the life-saving treatment she has been receiving in Los Angeles after her family's legal immigration status was abruptly revoked. Her family is now fighting to have their status reinstated. 'If they deport us and take away my daughter's access to her specialized care, she will die,' Deysi Vargas, the girl's mother, said Wednesday in her native Spanish during a news conference. Her 4-year-old daughter, who is being identified only by the initials S.G.V., was born with a defect in her small intestines known as short bowel syndrome. The condition does not allow her body to absorb nutrients from regular food. Instead, the girl receives all the nutrients she needs intravenously through a treatment known as Total Parenteral Nutrition, or TPN. "The doctors that are treating her have stated very clearly that if her treatment is interrupted, she will die within days," Gina Amato, an attorney for the family, told NBC News. "This is a classic example where deportation would equal death for this child. It is a very desperate situation.' To prevent malnutrition, S.G.V. receives her TPN treatment each night at home for at least 14 hours, the mother and her attorneys said. During the day, when the girl goes to pre-school or accompanies her mother to the supermarket, S.G.V. wears a portable version of the treatment in a backpack. At least four times a day, Vargas spends one hour connecting her daughter to gastric tubes that attach to the backpack containing the nutrients she needs. The company that manufactures the equipment that delivers the intravenous nutrition the girl needs does "not allow the equipment to travel outside the United States," Amato said at the news conference, adding that few places outside the U.S. can safely and effectively administer this treatment. Before coming to the United States nearly two years ago, S.G.V. 'was in really terrible shape and was having a very difficult time surviving,' Amato said. The girl had been receiving medical care in Mexico, spending many hours in a hospital bed receiving her nutrients intravenously, according to Amato and Vargas. S.G.V. was "not growing or getting any better," Vargas said. Desperate to get better medical care for their daughter, Vargas and her partner used the now-defunct CBP One app on July 2023 to legally enter the U.S. through the southern border. The family was then granted humanitarian parole for the purpose of seeking medical treatment for S.G.V. The girl was quickly taken to a hospital in San Diego upon their arrival because she was in such poor health, the family and their attorneys said. A year later, she was referred to the Children's Hospital in Los Angeles, which has one of the nation's best gastroenterology programs. Doctors there have been caring for S.G.V. for the past year, also monitoring the TPN treatment she receives. "Now, with the help my daughter receives in the United States, my daughter has the opportunity to leave the hospital, see the world, and live like a child her age," Vargas said. S.G.V. was at the news conference with her TPN backpack. She spent most of the time playing cards and making some arts and crafts to show how the treatment has helped improve her quality of life. According to the family's legal team, the family's humanitarian parole was set to expire at the end of July and Vargas was fighting to get it extended. But last month, the family received a notice via email from the Department of Homeland Security terminating their parole and work authorization. "If you do not depart the United States immediately you will be subject to potential law enforcement actions that will result in your removal from the United States — unless you have otherwise obtained a lawful basis to remain here," the notice, which was obtained by NBC News, reads. 'Clearly they did not give individualized consideration to this case, because had they done so,' Amato told NBC News, 'we believe that they would not have made this decision given the really poor condition of this child.' The notice also said, "DHS encourages you to leave immediately on your own," using the CBP Home mobile app, which has a self-deportation feature. The notice did not state a reason for revoking the family's parole other than DHS "exercising its discretion." According to attorneys at Public Counsel, the legal firm representing the family, no one in the family has any convictions. But the girl's father, who is not married to Vargas, has a pending charge stemming from "a misunderstanding at the San Diego hospital when he raised his voice" when discussing his daughter's care in an area "where he did not understand he could not be loud." Attorneys believe the charge will likely "be dismissed because he's complying with the anger management classes the courts requested of him," they said. "This does not influence the legality of Deysi's case." Believing the DHS notice was perhaps sent by mistake, attorneys for the family wrote a letter to federal immigration authorities on May 9. "They have not violated the terms of their parole," the letter, which was obtained by NBC News, reads. "We believe this notice was issued in error. Please correct this error." Still, the family continued receiving notices about their parole's termination, Amato said during the press conference. So, they filed a new application for humanitarian parole through the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The agency did not respond to a request for comment. A senior DHS official insisted to NBC News via email that reports about the family "actively being deported are FALSE. This family applied with USCIS for humanitarian parole on May 14, 2025, and the application is still being considered.' In the meantime, 'the family is very much in limbo, and they're terrified,' Amato said. 'They're no longer in status and they're no longer authorized to work in the U.S. So, they face many fears.' This article was originally published on
San Francisco Chronicle
2 days ago
- Health
- San Francisco Chronicle
Lawyer says Trump administration revokes parole of Mexican girl receiving lifesaving care in US
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Trump administration has revoked permission for a 4-year-old Mexican girl who receives lifesaving medical care from a California hospital to stay in the country, attorneys for the family said on Wednesday. Lawyer Gina Amato said the girl's mother was notified the U.S. government was withdrawing the humanitarian parole the family received in 2023 when she brought her ailing child to the U.S.-Mexico border. She received the notifications in April and May and was told the family is subject to potential deportation, Amato said. Since then, the girl has made it out of the hospital thanks to a treatment that provides intravenous nutrition through a backpack she wears. Lawyers said she isn't strong enough to survive without it as she suffers from short bowel syndrome, which prevents her from being able to take in and process nutrients on her own, and the treatment she receives isn't available in Mexico. 'Doctors have been clear that she will die within days' without this care, Amato said at a press conference in Los Angeles. 'Deporting this family under these conditions is not only unlawful, it constitutes a moral failure that violates the basic tenets of humanity and decency.' The attorneys did not provide the girl's real name to protect her privacy. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services did not immediately comment. A senior Homeland Security official, in an email sent from an address for media inquiries, said the family is not actively being deported and a more recent application for parole that was filed two weeks ago is still being considered. The Trump administration has been pushing to dismantle policies from President Joe Biden's administration that allowed for people to live legally in the U.S., generally for two years. Humanitarian parole, which doesn't put migrants on a path to U.S. citizenship, was widely used during the Biden administration to alleviate pressure on the U.S.-Mexico southern border. It was previously used on a case-by-case basis to address individual emergencies and also for people fleeing humanitarian crises around the world including Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos during the late 1970s. In Mexico, the girl was largely confined to a hospital because of her medical condition, her mother Deysi Vargas told reporters. Once the family arrived at the border, U.S. officials had the child taken to a hospital in San Diego, where she stayed until she was well enough to join a program through Children's Hospital Los Angeles that allows her to receive treatment at home in Bakersfield, California, Vargas said. Now, she enjoys going to the park and the supermarket — and above all, living outside a hospital's walls, Vargas said. 'With the help she has received in the United States, my daughter has the opportunity to leave the hospital, see the world, and live like a girl her age,' Vargas said in Spanish. Her daughter sat nearby, smiling and playing with stickers, while wearing the black backpack that helps keep her alive. Attorneys said they have written to U.S. government officials asking if they made a mistake and filed a fresh application for humanitarian parole for the family.
