Three Marines Defending Their Father. ICE Raiding Little League Field. School Superintendent Detained: – This is Why America is Rejecting Mass Deportation

Access online version of this press release HERE

Washington, DC — As America’s Voice highlights in detail in our updated polling memo, the more Americans witness the Trump/Miller mass deportation crusade in action, the more they reject it. A handful of stories and examples in the news in recent days helps underscore why public opinion has sharply turned against this administration on immigration and on their cruel and chaotic and sweeping detention and deportation agenda.

According to Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice:

“In their go-for-broke cruelty and chaos, the Trump administration is alienating the vast majority of Americans who don’t want armed and masked agents targeting our neighbors and co-workers. More and more stories come out every day of the devastating impact of mass deportations: three Marines defending their father from deportation; ICE agents terrorizing kids at Little League; an US citizen educator questioned and detained. This is what Americans are witnessing every day in their communities and what motivates them to reject Trump’s onslaught. Americans want a better way.”

See below for key stories highlighting the larger implications the Trump administration’s mass deportation policies have on all American citizens:

• Los Angeles Times, “3 U.S. Marine brothers faced toughest mission: Getting their dad freed from ICE custody,” noting: “His father was injured during his arrest, according to Alejandro. But days after, the only thing the father wanted to know was how his truck and landscaping equipment were accounted for. He asked his son to take over his work, Alejandro said the fact that three of his sons are serving or have served the U.S. government has not deterred Narcisco Barranco from wanting to become a citizen. “I’m making sure that my father’s story is told and I’m also making sure that people know what a hard worker he is,” Alejandro Barranco said. “It’s disappointing that my parents worked so hard raising us and that their three boys who were willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for this country now find themselves going through all of this. Being taken away like this. It’s just rather sad that it’s come to this,” he added. It’s unclear why the masked federal agents singled out Barranco.” During an oversight forum examining the Trump administration’s detention and deportation practices this past Tuesday, Alejandro Barranco stated to Democratic members of the House Committee on Homeland Security, “My father has no criminal record and should have never been attacked by these agents…He supported his family and paid taxes. He is a human being, but he was not treated with the basic dignity he deserved.”
• The New Yorker, “ICE Agents Invade a Manhattan Little League Field ,” noting: “Youman Wilder has coached local kids for twenty-one years—including four who have gone pro. When masked agents tried to interrogate his players, he told them, ‘You don’t have more rights than they do.’ Last month, Wilder had just concluded a session in the batting cages with a group of new kids. He saw six ICE agents approach. “I thought they were speaking about baseball,” he said. “And then I heard, ‘Where are you from? Where are your parents from?’” Four had face masks. All had guns and tasers.”
• WCAX 3 (Vermont), “Vt. school superintendent briefly detained by immigration agents,” noting: “The superintendent of schools in Winooski says he was briefly detained by immigration authorities at an airport in Houston. Wilmer Chavarria said while traveling back from Nicaragua, where he grew up, he was detained by immigration agents and questioned for five hours. Chavarria has been a U.S. citizen since 2018. He tells WCAX the officers who stopped him tried to access his computer with sensitive student data on it, but he refused to give up his passwords. ‘I continued to ask for a lawyer, at least to ask the district lawyer to give me the go-ahead to provide that information, and they continued to refuse,’ said Chavarria. ‘Rights are being violated for U.S. citizens, as well, and that’s going to continue to happen and get worse if people don’t mobilize quickly enough.’”
• Reuters, “An American toddler in foster care, a mom in ICE detention,” noting: “Mejia, a 25-year-old farmworker from Guatemala, had gone to court on February 25 on a charge of driving without a license. She didn’t have a lawyer – or childcare. So, she left Eliazar, a chubby-cheeked child with dark hair and eyes, waiting outside with the person who had given her a ride to court … The brief [three day] sentence plunged Mejia into the dragnet of President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement, landing her in immigration detention for more than four months and stranding her U.S. citizen son in foster care for even longer.”
• ABC7 Los Angeles, “US citizen detained after federal agents show up at Ontario [CA] Stater Bros. store,” (watch disturbing video in above link) noting: “A U.S. citizen was detained after federal agents showed up at a Stater Bros. Markets store in Ontario Monday morning. Nearby doorbell video shows Angel Pina running away, approaching a passing SUV looking for help, but the agents wound up violently taking him into custody. “They were shoving my head against the ground, elbowed me and they used, forcefully, a baton to really pierce my side,” Pina told Eyewitness News. Pina says he tried explaining to the agents that he is American, but they ignored him. “I told them where I was born, I had an ID, I had a social, I had a birth certificate,” he said. “None of the ICE agents that were on scene, they didn’t care about none of that.” He was released when a supervisor showed up. Pina’s family said he’s in the hospital after he passed out twice and couldn’t stop vomiting. They believe he was given a concussion by the agents as they placed him under arrest.”