ICE sparks fury for reportedly detaining pastors — then threatening to take their kids

Faith leaders are calling on US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to immediately free a pair of pastors who advocates say were wrongfully detained by ICE agents in Texas on Thursday while traveling to a religious retreat.Pastor Nepthalí Zozaya Saucedo and his wife, pastor Cinthia Saraí Cardona Otero, were detained by federal immigration enforcers after arriving at McAllen International Airport.According to the couple and their church leaders, the longtime pastors at the Comunidad Cristiana Emanuel Assemblies of God congregation in Edinburg, Texas were on their way to a marriage retreat in North Carolina organized by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association when they were detained and taken to a US Border Patrol processing center in McAllen.At a Friday press conference hosted by leaders from the Assemblies of God and the Latino Christian National Network, LCN board member Sandy Ovalle said that the couple has valid R-1 religious worker visas.“We are calling for their immediate release, the protection of their due process rights, and an urgent oversight into ICE’s conduct,” Ovalle said. “No one should be pressured to give up their rights under the threat of losing their children.”A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told Religion News Service that the pastors are “illegal aliens” who overstayed their visas.Addressing the conference by phone from the detention center, Nepthalí said that the couple was threatened with separation from their US citizen children if they did not sign papers authorizing their “voluntary” deportation.“They spoke with us about separation—to be separated from our children and even as married people,” he said, according to Religion News Service. “They spoke about how much time that we could end up spending here.”Speaking during the press conference, Comunidad Cristiana Emanuel senior pastor Sarai Martinez Luna said, “I think it’s very cruel that somebody that had no status for deportation be pressured to sign a voluntary deportation based on the separation of their children.”Friday’s news conference followed a Wednesday press briefing by faith leaders at the Texas Capitol in Austin to condemn the killings of Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Maine, Juan Jairo Coronilla Durán in Florida, and Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston.“This is not of God. This is no peace that we want a part of because let’s be honest, this isn’t a peacekeeping initiative. This is a terror campaign with the mission of traumatizing our neighbors until they self-deport,” said Dan De Leon, senior pastor at Friends Congregational Church in College Station. “We don’t need terror. We need peace.”Elyse Rosenberg of the National Council of Jewish Women and Temple Beth Shalom in Austin said during the press conference that “throughout our history, we have repeatedly seen first-hand the consequences of governments exercising unchecked power on vulnerable populations.”Friday’s event also preceded nationwide vigils in more than 300 communities across the nation on Saturday to demand justice for the dozens of people who have been killed by federal enforcers or died in ICE custody during President Donald Trump’s second term.“We refuse to grieve quietly. We refuse to accept this terror and violence as inevitable," Crystal Cron, executive director of Presente! Maine, said ahead of the vigils. “Johan Sebastián should still be here with his wife and daughter—and instead, his name joins a growing list of people killed by an institution that treats our communities as disposable.”“This is bigger than one shooting,” Cron added. “We will not stop fighting until there is justice for the Durán Guerrero family and a total dismantling of this lawless, criminal agency that took him from them.”

Trump’s unprecedented $37B failure exposed as secret meeting details leak: report

President Donald Trump's escalating military campaign against Iran is achieving the “opposite” of its intended effect, according to a senior U.S. official cited in a New York Times report Saturday.“The official said the strikes have the opposite effect of what is intended, keeping Iran cohesive and allowing Iranian leaders to focus attention on an external threat,” the Times’ report reads.The assessment came after insiders leaked details to the Times about a Friday meeting between Trump and his top advisers and Cabinet members, where officials weighed whether or not to escalate the war further. According to the Times, few, if any, in Trump's inner circle believed intensifying the bombing campaign was wise.A separate senior official who was briefed on the discussion expressed doubts that resuming major combat operations would push Iran back to the table at all.The “private deliberations” focused on what officials warned was the Pentagon’s “shrinking inventory of Patriot interceptors and other air defenses,” the Times reported.“Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has cautioned privately that resuming major combat operations against Iran was doable but that it would dangerously deplete interceptors available to the military’s Central Command, which is responsible for operations in the Middle East, the officials said,” the Times’ report reads.Earlier this week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told a congressional committee that Trump’s deeply unpopular war against Iran had cost taxpayers $37.5 billion so far.The internal skepticism adds to a growing list of signs that the administration's approach to Iran isn't producing the results Trump has publicly promised, even as the financial and human costs of the conflict continue to climb.

Penn State Law Dean Resigns Amid Fallout From School’s Anti-Racism Class and Free Beacon Report

The dean of Penn State Dickinson Law resigned on Friday after a former student testified before Congress about the school’s mandatory anti-racism class, which required all first-year students to "acknowledge the reality of systemic racism." The post Penn State Law Dean Resigns Amid Fallout From School’s Anti-Racism Class and Free Beacon Report appeared first on .

'Planemaxxing': report finds U.S. blew classified cash on fancy and unsafe Trump jet

The U.S. government quietly spent hundreds of millions of dollars so President Donald Trump could fly in an unsafe plane with a chandelier, according to a new report. The $400 million jet donated by the Qatari royal family was recently grounded after security measures — which Trump himself approved — proved unable to withstand a credible threat from Irani proxy forces, the New York Times reported Saturday."The reversal exposes the potential risks that the government took to satisfy Mr. Trump’s demand for an aircraft befitting the grandeur he believes should accompany his office," the Times reported. Trump was reportedly entranced by the double-decker jet's luxurious features, namely a bedroom bedecked in leather and a lounge with sued seats and a chandelier, the Times reported. His desire to fly in luxury meant the 747-8 plane was overhauled in just about eight months — while experts told the Times it should have taken several years. "Trump was personally engaged in making decisions about the retrofitting of the donated plane," sources told the Times, "giving the final approval on the features and security measures that would be included."That tight deadline bumped up the price tag, the Times reported. The government was forced to spend "hundreds of millions of dollars" on top of publicly acknowledged $400 million to buy training equipment in time for pilots to fly the 747-8 plane, according to the report. "The Pentagon has tried to mask the total price tag — including from Congress — by taking the funds from a classified budget for nuclear modernization," the Times reported. The rushed effort caught up with Trump in Turkey earlier this month when the Secret Service identified a credible threat from which the new Air Force One plan could not protect him, the Times previously reported.The White House earlier this week announced that the Qatari jet would be taken out of service for what the White House declared to be “PLANEMAXXING."

Report: As Its Leaders Fight, Iran May Now Be Coming Apart From Within

Rubio’s Paranoid Cuba Report Designed to “Justify a Military Attack on Cuba,” Says Democratic Rep.

Did Cuba foment Black Lives Matter and anti-ICE protests? The State Department seems to think so. The post Rubio’s Paranoid Cuba Report Designed to “Justify a Military Attack on Cuba,” Says Democratic Rep. appeared first on The Intercept.

ICE nabs Dreamer visiting his premature baby in intensive care: report

A father has been nabbed by ICE agents just 12 days after the premature birth of his daughter. Juan Chavez Velasco, 35, was grabbed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement while on his way to deliver milk to the newborn in Weslaco, Texas. Immigration agents pulled in front of his car and hauled him off despite Chavez telling the team he had a wife in the hospital and he was protected by DACA. The deferred action for childhood arrivals response did little for the agents, who said it "doesn't matter" and took Chavez away. Chavez, who says he "never got to hold" his child before being taken by ICE agents to Webb County Detention Center, is one of a growing number of Dreamers who believed they were protected by DACA before being nabbed by agents. The 35-year-old, speaking with MSNOW, said, "I feel betrayed. I feel very sad and heartbroken because I would have thought that the Trump administration would be more compassionate towards people like me who contribute to the country and have basically lived here all our lives."I love this country. I love what I’ve been able to accomplish here. We’re all contributing, we’re all paying taxes, this is our home. I’m not asking for a free ride. "I feel like a majority of people would agree that we deserve something because it wasn’t our fault to be here and because we love this country. We want to be here, we want to be part of this. We want to be Americans, because we’re Americans at heart."His wife, Villarreal, added, "He has no criminal history. Never has had any type of criminal history. He did everything right." Their daughter, Elianna, was born on February 6.Chavez Velasco’s DACA status expired on March 10 while he was being held at Webb County Detention Center, and despite filing a renewal request with the government. Jodi Goodwin, Chavez Velasco’s attorney, hopes the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services renews his DACA and that ICE releases him. “We’re straddling a tightrope, because we need time and we don’t have that kind of time if they’re going to put him on a plane,” Goodwin said. “I don’t have a lot of faith in what we’re doing here, because I don’t have any faith in ICE whatsoever."

Domestic Violence Arrest Smacks Down Anti-ICE Hunger Strike Story