14 agencies carry out targeted sting operation on unsanctioned nightclub, arresting ‘high-level' cartel members
14 agencies approached The Alamo around 3 a.m. on June 1, as part of 'Operation Last Stand.' These include the Charleston County Sheriff's Office, South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and more. Sheriff Carl Ritchie said they have been monitoring the club since November 2024.
'This particular location has been a source of a lot of disruption, crime, assaults, drug dealing etc. going on in that particular area,' said Ritchie.
116 criminal and immigration warrants were served to 80 people. There over 60 people believed to be in the country illegally, who were detained. The multi-agency effort allowed for the arrest of two high-level cartel members and an international murder suspect wanted by Interpol. Governor Henry McMaster said this is why he believes stricter border policies are necessary.
'One way it happened is when you don't have strong law enforcement, this is what happens. When particularly, in these cases now, that we're going to have now and for years to come when we have illegal immigration,' McMaster said. 'People with criminal backgrounds, people that bet on causing trouble that are recognized – some as terrorists, that are allowed to come through a completely open border. This is what you get.'
The governor added this operation was an example of a coordinated approach of these agencies working to enforce the laws under President Donald Trump.
With over 200 patrons in the building, law enforcement also discovered seven people believed to be human trafficking victims and a missing juvenile. Officials said there were 10 underage minors in the building, with the youngest of them being 13 years old. Additionally, Charleston County code enforcement has shut down the unlicensed club.
'I'm very proud of what agencies did in that operation. I was there, very long day, but I was with them to see what these men and women do and supported them,' the sheriff said. 'I'm very proud we got this type of element out of our community. We made it safe for some of our young people and we're going to continue working on that.'
Enrique Grace, president of the Charleston Hispanic Association, told News 2 he is grateful for the transparency from CCSO.
'The Hispanic community is applauding what happened. The Hispanic community and the immigrant community doesn't want criminals in their backyard, that's kind of why they left the country – they are coming here. We applaud what happened, that place has been around for a long time, I guess nobody knew what was going on in there. We're pretty happy that the bad guys are off the street,' Grace said.
This is an ongoing investigation. Those with information about The Alamo are encouraged to call 803-896-7400.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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Chicago Tribune
2 hours ago
- Chicago Tribune
East Chicago honors Hispanic political pioneers Jesse and Rosemarie Gomez
The 3800 block of Grand Boulevard in East Chicago now honors Jesse and Rosemarie Gomez, both Hispanic pioneers in politics. Jesse was the first Hispanic elected official in Indiana, Councilman Robert Garcia said. Rosemarie became the first Hispanic woman to serve on the East Chicago City Council after her husband died in 1979. Garcia represents the district that the Gomezes once did. The City Council approved the resolution last year, but getting everyone together for Friday's dedication of the new sign for Jesse & Rosemarie Gomez Way took time. 'We stand on the back of those elected officials,' Garcia said. 'I stand on the shoulders of their leadership and their legacy.' Their son, also named Jesse Gomez but with a different middle name, followed in his parents' footsteps, serving on both the city council and now on the school board. Gomez told his parents' story. 'My father's family arrived here in East Chicago from Mexico as trailblazers in 1916, and he was born here on April 14, 1920,' Gomez said. At age 12, Gomez's father and his family returned to Zacatecas, Mexico, later attending the University of Mexico, where he focused on political science. With the impending start of World War II, he returned to East Chicago to register for the draft and work at Inland Steel. After he left the mill, he worked as an insurance agent, an editorial writer for two Spanish-language newspapers, a radio announcer for WJOB's Spanish-language 'Hora Mexicana' program, and as a health inspector for the city. In 1963, he was elected 6th District councilman, the first Hispanic elected to political office in the state's history. He was re-elected to three additional consecutive terms, Gomez said, eventually becoming the 5th District councilman. 'Time with an elected official is interesting,' Gomez said. 'As a youngster, I remember that we often had a table set for eight at dinner – two for my parents, four for the children and one for the live-in family friend, Joe. The eighth seat was reserved for someone else, usually an immigrant who was first making their way here to East Chicago from Mexico, Puerto Rico or somewhere across the Atlantic.' 'My father was a good dancer, a great sketch artist, a fantastic chess player, a horrible joke teller and, in his mind, the greatest soccer player in the world,' Gomez said. Gomez rattled off a long list of achievements during his father's career, including serving as a Spanish language volunteer for the Pan-American Games and project coordinator for the East Chicago Vietnam Veterans Memorial, not to mention service twice as City Council president. 'That's a lot for one person to do in a lifetime. My father achieved that during his short time here on Earth,' Gomez said. The elder Jesse died Aug. 31, 1979, at age 59. Rosemarie was born Jan. 14, 1926, in Saltillo, Mexico. While she was young, her family moved back and forth between the United States and Mexico. She attended East Chicago public schools but left early to work at Inland Steel to help her family financially, Gomez said. She later returned to school and graduated from Washington High School. In 1939, Rosemarie portrayed the Statue of Liberty during the Mexican Independence Day Parade. The next year, she served as queen of that parade. Rosemarie, 99, has her own long list of accomplishments and involvement in the community. 'My mother was a great cook, a fantastic gardener, and she is one of the most loving, kind and considerate people that you ever will meet,' Gomez said. One day, Gomez said, his father told Rosemarie she needed to become an American citizen, which she did. 'My mother later found out that the reason he asked her to do that was so that years later she could vote for him when he first ran for the City Council, a race he won,' Gomez said. 'Together, my parents were trailblazers, in similar fashion to the way their parents were,' Gomez said. 'They were kind of the Hispanic version of John and Jackie Kennedy.'
USA Today
9 hours ago
- USA Today
Farmers are facing a fork on Trump's immigration highway. So what's next?
Farmers say few native–born residents will pick fruit or tend cows. The agriculture worker visa program can be costly, burdensome and limited. And they say Congress has failed to act for years. For Candice Lyall, cherry harvest is always a race against the clock. Eastern Washington is famous for its cherries, and in the fourth-generation farmer's lush orchards, not far from Columbia River, there's just a short window when they are the perfect ripeness. Wait too long and they are too soft for sale. And they must be picked by hand. Lots of them. Finding those hands locally can be a challenge. Like other growers, some of her workers are foreign-born, whose presence is reflected in the Hispanic restaurants in the nearby 3,300-resident town of Mattawa. But this summer the harvest coincided with President Donald Trump's mass deportation sweeps. Rumors swirled of roadway checkpoints. More than 100 workers who started Lyall's harvest dwindled to 30 by the second week, leading her farm to struggle to get cherries picked in time. Some were picked too late, she said, but the financial hit to her farm was likely to be far less than what some other growers experienced. 'There's a lot of farms that didn't pick because they didn't have enough labor,' she said. Lyall is a Trump supporter in a conservative farming region. She favors stricter border security because of worries of drug cartels. But she wants to see a path toward a stable workforce. 'There needs to be some solutions put on the table,' Lyall told USA TODAY. Across the country, Trump's immigration raids have roiled farms and farming communities – with cases of worker shortages and fears of unpicked crops. And it has fueled growing calls for the Trump administration to protect agricultural workers critical to the U.S. food supply. Of the 2.6 million people working on U.S. farms, about 42% lack legal status, according to the Department of Agriculture and other estimates. Farmers say few native–born residents will pick fruit or tend cows. The country's foreign agriculture worker visa program can be costly, burdensome and limited. And farmers say Congress has failed for decades to pass comprehensive immigration reforms. Those long-standing struggles are now compounded by the lurking presence of Trump's masked immigration forces as harvest season approaches or is underway. Earlier this month, raids on farms in California left hundreds detained, and soon after, a group of farmworkers in California held a three-day strike and called for boycotts. At stake are potential disruptions to the U.S. food supply and higher consumer costs. 'Farm employers are holding their breath, trying to keep operations afloat without knowing whether their workforce will show up tomorrow — or stay away for fear of a raid,' said Ben Tindall, head of the Save Family Farming advocacy group, based in Washington state. The Trump administration in June suspended farm enforcement but then reversed that decision. More recently, Trump has cited the importance of farm labor and said his administration would look into ways for farmworkers to 'be here legally, they can pay taxes and everything.' Other administration officials, including border czar Tom Holman, said there would be no 'amnesty' but cited ongoing discussions about policy changes related to farmworkers. A bill in Congress would create a legal pathway for longtime workers and streamline worker visas. The push for changes comes amid signs of a shift in public attitudes reflected in a recent Gallup poll that found a record-high of 79% of U.S. adults say immigration is good for the country, while only 35% said they approve of Trump's handling of the issue. Manuel Cunha, the president of the Nisei Farmers League, which represents 500 farmers employing about 75,000 California farmworkers, said he's hopeful that policies will change. For now, he said, workers in places like the San Joaquin Valley are holding steady despite raids that have caused temporary shortages. Still, farmers are on edge, knowing it could change at any moment. Why foreign-born workers are critical to farmers In Lincoln County, Wisconsin, where the rural landscape of pastures and fields is dotted with barns and silos, Hans Breitenmoser's parents emigrated here in 1968 from Switzerland to raise dairy cows on a small farm. He grew up amid the daily rhythms of feeding and milking. When the farm grew, they had to hire more workers. But they could find few native-born residents willing to take the jobs in the sparsely populated area. And over time, fewer younger people were sticking around the farms. Now, the 56-year-old relies on about a dozen foreign-born workers, mostly from Mexico, to operate the 460-cow farm, not far from a shuttered church with peeling paint about five miles outside a town of 9,000 residents. 'If it wouldn't be for immigrants, my dairy farm wouldn't run,' he said. In recent months, dairy farms in Texas reported absenteeism while ICE has detained or deported people at dairy farms in New York and Vermont, where one Trump-voting farmer told a news outlet he didn't think deportations would impact the industry's workers. Dairies are particularly vulnerable to labor shortages because cows need daily care to survive, Brietenmoser said, and cannot be temporarily shut down like a construction site or restaurant. 'Am I concerned about it? Absolutely,' said Breitenmoser, who said he was among a minority in Lincoln County who did not support Trump in 2024. 'They don't get fed and they don't get watered, and they don't get milked and they don't get cleaned up after, they will die.' Across the nation today, about 70% of workers in the U.S. farm sector are foreign born, according to the Federal Reserve of Kansas City. The National Milk Producers Federation says milk prices could nearly double if the U.S. dairy industry loses its foreign-born workforce, the group said. 'The uncertainty that undergirds agricultural labor and immigration in the U.S. continues to harm workers and their families, farm employers, rural communities and national food security,' according to the federation. Farmers typically hire workers with documentation such as Social Security cards or permits the government says must 'reasonably appear to be genuine.' The government's E-Verify system, required in some places, isn't foolproof. Breitenmoser argues Trump's political rhetoric painting immigrants as criminals and invaders, when most are workers filling jobs no one else will, is a self-defeating strategy. 'We've built an economy that relies on people, but we have a public policy that demonizes them. And to my way of thinking that just doesn't make any sense,' he said. 'American farming cannot survive without foreign-born staff.' The dairy farmer noted that 'we had immigration reform in front of the Congress prior to the election, but because all of the Republicans were scared of Donald Trump, it didn't happen.' The solution, he said, is 'stupid simple:' Accept the realities of farm labor. Hand out more work visas. And create pathways to vet longtime workers who need legal work permits. He hopes the recent turmoil will lead to long-needed changes. 'Somebody's going to drive through McDonald's to buy a freaking latte and a hamburger. And guess where that comes from? It comes from my farm. And it doesn't happen magically. It takes human beings, be they brown, Black, White, green or otherwise, to get the job done,' he said. 'And that's what our public policy should reflect.' Workers face stains, worry In a Colorado agricultural area northeast of Denver, Maria has worked in fields of watermelon, pumpkins and tomatoes for years. But not now. The 56-year-old, who didn't want to use her full name because she doesn't have legal status, emigrated from Chihuahua, Mexico 20 years ago to escape violence and find better pay. Jobs on farms are hot, grueling and physically challenging. But some farmworkers can earn in one hour what they'd make in a full day back in Mexico. She said she sees an ICE presence in her part of Colorado. One friend's brother was detained on the street earlier this year. Her husband is still working in a dairy to make ends meet, but she said some farms have had to look for workers out of state. For now they want to stick it out. Their lives are here. They have children and U.S. citizen grandchildren who live in the United States and are concerned about them. 'There's a lot of anxiety about, you know, grandmother, are they going to take you away?' she said. Many have reluctantly returned to work after raids that have taken place in places like California's San Joaquin Valley for financial reasons, said Teresa Romero, head of United Farm Workers. 'It is a little misconception, assuming that workers are not going back to work. Some workers are, of course, scared of what could happen,' she said. 'They might be scared for a day or so, but they go back to work. They need their jobs and they need to support their families.' Romero said the crackdown is also impacting the communities in which they live and work. Many are staying inside and not going to parks, school functions, churches and restaurants. In raids earlier this month at cannabis farms in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, immigration agents descended on Glass House Farms near Camarillo and in Carpinteria. They clashed with protesters and detained more than 200 farmworkers. A Mexican farmworker, Jaime Alanís Garcia, 57, died after falling from a greenhouse roof he'd climbed atop in an alleged attempt to evade officers, according to multiple reports, 'The farmworkers detained in these raids are clearly in the United States to fill jobs that employers cannot otherwise fill,' U.S. Rep. Julia Brownley, D-Thousand Oaks, said in a letter to federal officials. 'Their undocumented status is not by choice, but a direct result of Congress' ongoing failure to pass comprehensive immigration reform that would allow a sufficient number of workers into the country and provide a viable pathway to citizenship.' That's what Gabriel, a 42-year-old from Puebla, Mexico, who didn't want to use his name because he lacks legal status and fears detention, would like to see, too. The farmwork in California's Central Valley has lived in the U.S. for 25 years. He has worked in fields of crops from eggplant to pumpkin, waking up at 4 a.m. and earning $16.50 an hour. He said the majority of his fellow workers are also immigrants without papers and are still working, but some are considering going home. He blames past and current administrations for failing to deliver on immigration reform. He said some longtime workers were angry at former President Joe Biden for enacting more legal pathways to migrate and not focusing on legalizing the status of longtime workers. 'Let workers work,' he said. 'These are people who help feed the country and pay taxes.' Even legally present farmworkers are uneasy. ICE officials have argued they don't need probable cause to detain people and the agency could deport people with just six hours' notice. Maurico Sol, an H-2A worker who supervises dozens of fellow visa holders on a farm that spans Idaho and Oregon, said some colleagues have asked if it's safe to go to Walmart on weekends. He advised them to always carry their passport and visa. 'I've also heard people that say, well, maybe this is going to be my last year,' he said. 'Because it feels different … Even when we are in a good space here, where it's not happening a lot, you feel like, eh, we don't know. We don't want to go out. Because maybe they're going to confuse me if they see me in the mall and I'm going to be chained for, I don't know, 48 hours, or maybe they're going to deport me even though I have papers.' A search for a solution Sol works for Shay Myers, a farmer whose onions grow in fields not far from where the Snake River separates Oregon and Idaho. The third-generation farmer operates Owyhee Produce, which grows one in every 20 onions consumed in America. Myers, 45, is also TikTok influencer with 692,000 followers and posts videos about his farm and the intricacies of agriculture. But lately the Republican farmer has been highlighting his mostly foreign-born laborers – from Mexico, Central America, Peru and Colombia – who he says are critical. The majority of his workers, which can number 350 during harvests, are here on H-2A visas. While such workers represent about 13% of the nation's farmworkers, the number of certified H-2A workers grew by 64.7% between 2017 and 2022. Meanwhile, the share of unauthorized workers has dropped to about 42% from from 55% in 2001. But it's also a bureaucratic and expensive program, he said. Farmers have to prove no domestic workers are available or willing to do the job. They provide housing and adhere to wage-premiums meant to keep the program from pushing down wages of U.S. residents who do similar jobs, and must follow rules such as overtime that differ among states. And it's time-limited. Immigrant Workers Are Essential. #foryou #fyp #foryoupage #farmlife #farm #farming Labor groups also criticize the H-2A visa program, saying it often requires workers to stick with one employer which makes them vulnerable to wage theft or poor housing. Myers said that's not the case at his farm. He grew up and went to school in the area with undocumented families. And today his children do, too. 'We lose from every angle. The right-wingers come at us … 'You won't give jobs to Americans,' Myers said. 'And then the left wing side of the discussion is, well, all you do is bring H-2A workers and they work for you like slaves.' He, too, wants a more flexible worker program and creating a path to legal status for undocumented workers here for 10 years and longer. He said the deportations have proved a problem both ethically for farm families and economically for the industry. 'Let's find a solution,' he said on one video. Earlier this month, Trump suggested in Iowa – a leading corn and pork producer that relies heavily on migrant workers – that his administration would seek to permit some migrants without legal status to stay on farms, the Des Moines Register, part of the USA TODAY Network, reported. "If a farmer's willing to vouch for these people, in some way, Kristi, I think we're going to have to just say that's going to be good, right?" he said, referencing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem who was with him on the Iowa trip. "You know, we're going to be good with it. Because we don't want to do it where we take all of the workers off the farms. We want the farms to do great like they're doing right now." U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins cited plans to make the H-2A program 'cheaper, more efficient and more effective for those farmers.' The United Farm Workers favors paths to legal status for those already here over simply expanding the guestworker program for new arrivals, who they say would still be more prone to labor abuses. In Congress, Republican U.S. Reps. María Elvira Salazar of Florida, and Veronica Escobar of Texas introduced the DIGNITY Act. Among its many provisions is a seven-year earned legal status program allowing undocumented immigrants to live and work legally, with renewable status based on good conduct and restitution. "We have 10 million people or more working in construction, hospitality, agriculture, dairy, fisheries, slaughterhouses who are undocumented but are not criminals," Salazar said at a news conference. But House Speaker Mike Johnson told the Wall Street Journal that immigration overhauls would face an uphill battle. Rollins has also suggested that the country could fill jobs with Americans who will face Medicaid work requirements, something farmers immediately shot down. Farming groups call for realism Cunha, head of Nisei Farmers League, was among those very blunt about that idea: 'That's just not going to work,' he said. He knows firsthand. In 1998, during President Bill Clinton's Welfare-to-Work push, Cunha helped launch an effort in 10 California counties to recruit welfare recipients and unemployed workers to help fill tens of thousands of farmworker jobs. People would be aided with child care, transportation and training. Just 500 people applied. And only three took jobs. None of them lasted more than two days, he said. Crops were lost. 'It was a total disaster,' he said. A similar result took place in North Carolina, according to a 2013 report by the Partnership for a New American Economy and the Center for Global Development. When North Carolina had more than 489,000 unemployed residents, a growers association offered 6,500 jobs. Of 245 domestic workers hired, only seven lasted the entire season. It's not likely he contended that higher wages alone would have Americans flocking to the jobs, he argued. Not only can the work be physically grueling or dangerous, Cunha said it is not the unskilled work that many people assume. It takes experience and skill to prune a fruit tree or know which fruits to pick now and which to return for later. At a recent farm training in California that included topics like heat illness, Cunha said workers instead were full of questions about avoiding run-ins with ICE. Should they drive different routes or not wear hats and bandanas? One asked if he should shave his beard to look less like a farmworker. For now, he said, as the area's remaining harvests are closing in, it's stressful for both farmers and farmworkers. 'Labor is tight, but it's holding. And as long as – we pray every day – they stay out of the valley, then we'll make it through this season,' he said. 'But we do need to deal with it. We should not have to go through this type of tension. And workers should not have to worry about shaving their beard.'
San Francisco Chronicle
a day ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Immigration judges fired by Trump administration say they will fight back
CHICAGO (AP) — Federal immigration judges fired by the Trump administration are filing appeals, pursuing legal action and speaking out in an unusually public campaign to fight back. More than 50 immigration judges — from senior leaders to new appointees — have been fired since Donald Trump assumed the presidency for the second time. Normally bound by courtroom decorum, many are now unrestrained in describing terminations they consider unlawful and why they believe they were targeted. Their suspected reasons include gender discrimination, decisions on immigration cases played up by the Trump administration and a courthouse tour with the Senate's No. 2 Democrat. 'I cared about my job and was really good at it,' Jennifer Peyton, a former supervising judge told The Associated Press this week. 'That letter that I received, the three sentences, explained no reason why I was fired.' Peyton, who received the notice while on a July Fourth family vacation, was appointed judge in 2016. She considered it her dream job. Peyton was later named assistant chief immigration judge in Chicago, helping to train, mentor and oversee judges. She was a visible presence in the busy downtown court, greeting outside observers. She cited top-notch performance reviews and said she faced no disciplinary action. Peyton said she'll appeal through the Merit Systems Protection Board, an independent government agency Trump has also targeted. Peyton's theories about why she was fired include appearing on a 'bureaucrat watchdog list' of people accused by a right-wing organization of working against the Trump agenda. She also questions a courthouse tour she gave to Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois in June. The nation's immigration courts — with a backlog of about 3.5 million cases — have become a key focus of Trump's hard-line immigration enforcement efforts. The firings are on top of resignations, early retirements and transfers, adding up to 106 judges gone since January, according to the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, which represents judges. There are currently about 600 immigration judges. Several of those fired, including Peyton, have recently done a slew of interviews on local Chicago television stations and with national outlets, saying they now have a platform for their colleagues who remain on the bench. 'The ones that are left are feeling threatened and very uncertain about their future,' said Matt Biggs, the union's president. Carla Espinoza, a Chicago immigration judge since 2023, was fired as she was delivering a verdict this month. Her notice said she'd be dismissed at the end of her two-year probationary period with the Executive Office for Immigration Review. 'I am personally committed to my career. We're not political appointees,' she told AP. 'I'm entitled to a reason.' She believes the firings have disproportionately affected women and ethnic minorities, including people with Hispanic-sounding surnames like hers. She plans to take legal action before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which has also shifted focus under Trump. 'There's a very strong pattern of discriminatory factors,' she said. Espinoza thinks another reason could be her decision to release a Mexican immigrant falsely accused of threatening to assassinate Trump. Ramón Morales Reyes was accused of a writing a threatening letter by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. But the claims quickly fell apart as Wisconsin authorities determined that Morales Reyes was actually framed by a man who had previously attacked him. Espinoza said she felt pressure with public scrutiny, media coverage and Noem's statements about Morales Reyes, which weren't corrected or removed from social media. 'It's hard to silence the noise and just do your job fairly when there's so much distraction," she said. 'I think I did. And I stand by my decision as having been a fair one to release an individual who I believe was twice victimized.' Peyton said she isn't sure that working as an immigration judge is still her dream job. 'It's important that everyone in our country knows what's happening in our immigration courts,' she said. 'The Department of Justice that I joined in 2016 is not the same one now.'
