While hoping no one noticed, the Trump administration freed a convicted, three-time murderer. Offering no comment, it deflects, concentrating its efforts on exporting those without any criminal charges, let alone convictions, in their records.
It is said, but probably not often enough, that local news is often a critical source for national news. But, sometimes it is national news that has to become local, where the impact is felt.
Take President Trump’s intense, one might say, extreme position on immigration. Announced with great fanfare, Trump essentially ran on his intentions to stop border crossings, which he has largely accomplished, and to remove immigrants that have criminal records, but that record is far from clear.
The implementation of Trump’s drive to export undocumented immigrants leaves a lot to be desired. The costs of Trump’s conviction tears families and communities apart, violates the civil rights of citizens and those seeking to become citizens, incarcerates people for lacking documentation.
With critical parts of the economy under siege from Trump’s tariff policies, the frightening removal of immigrant workers from farms and factories, will affect us all in the coming days as we look for food and find ourselves with fewer options and small local stores close for the lack of inventory.
New Jersey has loomed large with ICE encounters in Newark, plans for the use of the city for a detention center, and, clearly, given New Jersey’s large immigrant population, one in four, according to the American Immigration Council and being a blue state as well, that we are a target is no surprise.
ICE appears to be on a rampage to satisfy Trump’s determination to meet his promised number of those to be exported. Despite huge investment, and questionable practices by his masked goons, his efforts have fallen short.
He still has not met the goals he aimed to achieve, numbers surpassed by his predecessors, presidents Obama and Biden who were guided by standards that were defensible and rarely attracted negative attention.
With the absence of competence in the execution of Trump policies — not to mention the abuse and cruelty — there is fear Trump intentionally generates with his threats as well as his lack of respect for the dignity of fellow human beings. His failure to note how essential many of those he aims to deport are to their families, their communities, their employers underlines his administration’s incompetence.
Trump aims to change America. It’s not a change any American should welcome.
There is more to the picture that we don’t often see, possibly because of the intimidation that leads the press to ignore or minimize what I’d say is critical news that Trump and his quislings will not like.
Take for example, the egregious error in the recent exchange of Americans held by Venezuela, only eight of whom were deemed to be declared “wrongfully detained by the U.S. State Department,” despite the announcement by Secretary of State Marco Rubio that all 10 released in the exchange met that standard:
“Every wrongfully detained American in Venezuela is now free and back in our homeland,” he said.
Nice spin, Mr. Secretary, as there are two others who were not wrongfully detained, one of particular interest: Dahud Hamid Ortiz, a U.S. Army veteran, who was freed by Venezuela where he had been tried and convicted of murdering three people in Spain, and was serving a term of 30 years in prison. America welcomed him home!
This killer roams among us today, free, moving around as he chooses, because Trump approved an exchange with Venezuela for gang members Venezuela wanted.
Some deal we managed to get. Is there any art in that? And is there press coverage? But for the New York Times, there is little, very little.
Don’t miss the point: We have the Trump administration exporting people who have no known criminal records, while receiving one, indeed, evidently, welcoming one with an extensive criminal record. Nice.
And they want to squelch that story. Sure, it doesn’t look good because it isn’t. Karoline Leavitt is side-stepping big time.
So far, I’ve seen no comment from the White House. There are little efforts to try to account for the error; they’d rather spin it differently.
When Newsweek reached out to the State Department for comment, a spokesperson declined to comment on the specific case of Ortiz and defended the operation: “We were able to secure the release of all Americans detained in Venezuela; many of whom reported being subjected to torture and other harsh conditions.”
So, the Republican administration is deflecting and hoping the story will disappear. Hard to do that, though, as Hamid Ortiz’ crime and conviction had been documented in the news media and in public court records for years before his release, as the New York Times reported on late July.
When President Biden was informed of Hamid Ortiz’ crimes and conviction, he refused to take him as part of a prisoner swap that took place in 2023. He was not seen as being “wrongfully detained” by Biden’s Secretary of State, who obviously knew what he was doing.
What are the chances that Rubio and Trump will be held to account? They are actively suppressing the story.
We should not fail to reveal how messed up these export/exchange initiatives that folks seem to think are keeping them safe are operating.
In the case of Hamid Ortiz, he is a threat to those in this country, including one of the people he tried to kill in Spain, but who survived; that intended victim fears for his life now that Ortiz Hamid is free. He had this to say to Secretary Rubio:
“If this was an omission, please make amends. Because it not only endangers me, but all Americans, because they are faced with a murderer who killed three innocent people without any qualms.”
The Trump administration is exporting people from America not because they committed a crime, although, admittedly, some have, but because he needs “the numbers” — so ICE aims, even, now, at courthouses, to grab those that are in the process of following the legal route to acceptance, a process that can take years, adding to their vulnerability, because the nation has too few immigration judges.
The administration is being careless (or couldn’t care less) who they export and who they let back in.
Regarding Ortiz release, as noted above, “at least some people in the Trump administration knew of his criminal past.” I guess they didn’t care.
We should.