Providence teen detained by ICE since March scheduled to have asylum hearing in September
:
An online portal shows the 'individual hearing' is now set for Sept. 18 in Colorado.
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'I'm going to take it for what it's worth because I'm going to hope that the criminal case gets resolved before then, and maybe we would have a different form of relief to ask for in the immigration court,' her immigration attorney, Cindy Salazar Tohme, said in an interview.
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A Honduran national, Soriano-Neto was arrested in February by Providence police on charges of indecent solicitation of a child and trafficking of a minor, Rhode Island court records show.
She was charged after she was blamed, without proof, by at least one of her friends, who were allegedly having sex with men for money,
Soriano-Neto was a student at Mount Pleasant High School in Providence at the time of her arrest, according to Salazar Tohme. A district spokesperson confirmed last month she is no longer enrolled.
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'She's feeling the pressures of being detained for such a long time,' Salazar Tohme said on Tuesday. 'And now she's so far away from her friends, her teachers, her close confidants at church that she is feeling the anxiety of being away from the things that she's known for the past seven years.'
Soriano-Neto unlawfully entered the United States in 2017, according to ICE, when she was about 10 years old. According to Salazar Tohme, Soriano-Neto was on a pathway to legal status when she was arrested.
Her attorneys have said Soriano-Neto may never get her day in Providence County District Court for her criminal case before she is possibly deported.
According to John MacDonald, her criminal defense attorney, it is typically 'very difficult to get any out-of-state client back in Rhode Island in ICE custody.' And if she fails to appear in court, a warrant can be issued, which means she will not be allowed 'to ever legally come back into the United States,' MacDonald said in May.
Felony cases undergo an up-to-six-month review by the Rhode Island Attorney General's Office to determine whether prosecutors will continue a case or drop it.
'That remains to be seen, what action the Attorney General takes,' MacDonald said on Tuesday.
If that process takes the full six months, prosecutors would make their decision in late August, just weeks before the hearing, according to MacDonald.
Asked if that complicates the situation, MacDonald said, 'It just is what it is.'
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The transfer came days after
The ICE spokesperson said
According to Salazar Tohme, Soriano-Neto's family has returned to Honduras. The attorney said last month they had planned to fly there so they could receive Soriano-Neto when she returns, should she be deported.
In September, Salazar Tohme will represent Soriano-Neto in-person at the Colorado court, she said. With the teen's family now out of the country, Salazar Tohme is taking on the case pro bono.
Material from previous Globe stories was used in this report.
Christopher Gavin can be reached at
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Atlantic
an hour ago
- Atlantic
Where Have the Proud Boys Gone?
Last week, the Department of Homeland Security debuted a recruitment strategy to expand the ranks of ICE: sign-on bonuses. Thanks to a rush of cash from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the department announced that it's offering up to $50,000 to newly hired federal law-enforcement agents. The offer caught the eye of one group that seemed to be particularly pleased by the government's exciting career opportunity. On Telegram, an account linked to the Toledo, Ohio, chapter of the Proud Boys declared: 'Toledo Boys living high on the hog right now!!' Whether members of the extremist group have pursued job openings at ICE, much less been hired and handed a big check, is unclear. I asked the Toledo chapter whether its members are applying to work for the government, but I didn't hear back. Tricia McLaughlin, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, said in an email that 'any individual who desires to join ICE will undergo intense background investigations and security clearances—no exception.' But the Toledo Proud Boys' enthusiasm for the work, if nothing else, is telling. The Trump administration is enacting a mass-deportation campaign centered around aggression and cruelty. The Proud Boys are staunchly against undocumented immigrants, and have repeatedly intimidated and physically antagonized their enemies (during the first Trump administration, they often got into fights with left-wing protesters). The group's ideals are being pursued—but by ICE and the government itself. Trump's deportations aren't what they seem There was every reason to believe that the Proud Boys would run wild in Donald Trump's second term. On his first day back in the White House, Trump pardoned everyone who was convicted for crimes related to the insurrection on January 6, 2021—including roughly 100 known members of the Proud Boys and other extremist organizations. They had received some of the harshest sentences tied to the Capitol riot: All 14 people who were still in prison when Trump returned to office were affiliated with either the Proud Boys or the Oath Keepers. At the time, a terrorism expert at the Council on Foreign Relations warned that the pardons 'could be catastrophic for public safety,' sending a message to extremist groups that violence in the name of MAGA 'is legal and legitimate.' Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the Proud Boys who himself was pardoned, announced that there would be hell to pay: 'I'm happy that the president is focusing not on retribution, and focusing on success,' he said on Infowars, 'but I will tell you that I'm not gonna play by those rules.' Six months later, though, the Proud Boys have been surprisingly quiet. According to data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED), a nonprofit that tracks political violence, the Proud Boys have been less active in 2025 than over the preceding several years. Since his release, Tarrio's most prominent action has been helping launch 'ICERAID,' a website that pays people in crypto in exchange for reporting undocumented immigrants. Tarrio, who did not respond to an interview request through a lawyer, also co-hosts frequent livestreams on X. In one episode of a livestream last month, Tarrio nursed a cigarette while a man who identified himself only as 'Patriot Rob' waxed nostalgic about how inescapable the Proud Boys once were. In 2020, members of the militant group showed up at anti-lockdown rallies across the country, clashed with racial-justice protesters, and earned a shout-out from Trump himself during a presidential debate. (The Proud Boys so frequently traveled to Washington, D.C., for various kinds of protests in 2020 that Politico wrote about their favorite bar.) Now, Patriot Rob said on the livestream, 'there's very few of us left.' It's unclear how many Proud Boy chapters there are today, but some seem to be defunct: Those in Philadelphia and Michigan have let their websites turn into dead links and stopped posting on Telegram, the social platform of choice for most Proud Boys. I reached out to 10 Proud Boy chapters and requested interviews. None was willing to speak with me. After I told a Miami chapter that I had spoken with experts on the current state of the Proud Boys, someone who identified himself only as 'Alex' responded: 'Experts' lol Experts at what? Sucking cock Y'all can go fuck yourselves!' The East Tennessee Chapter, perhaps mistaking my name for a woman's, replied by saying, 'We're going to request some nudes in order to confirm your identity 👌.' The Proud Boys have not disappeared. They have been spotted at a 'Tesla Takedown' event in Salem, Oregon; marched with anti-abortion activists in San Francisco; and confronted protesters outside of the 'Alligator Alcatraz' ICE facility. Other right-wing groups have been more active. After the Texas floods last month, a leader of the Patriot Front claimed that the extremist group was involved in recovery efforts to help ' European peoples.' Patriot Front, which has also held several marches across the country since the start of Trump's second term, remains a small organization. Estimates put its membership at 200 to 300 people, compared with the thousands that researchers believe are, or at least were, in the Proud Boys. On the whole, militia groups are 'keeping it low-key,' Amy Cooter, the deputy director and a co-founder of the Institute for Countering Digital Extremism, told me. Since the start of the year, ACLED has recorded 108 extremist protests nationwide—not even half as many as at this point in 2022. This is not entirely unexpected. As my colleague Adrienne LaFrance has reported, in the 1990s, a surge of militia activity and white nationalism appeared to die down after the Oklahoma City bombing—but those movements never disappeared; they simply moved underground. Today, part of the reason for the apparent decline is that even after Trump's pardons, far-right groups are still dealing with the hangover of January 6. Militia groups have always been relatively splintered, but the insurrection exacerbated the fissures. Some Oath Keeper groups are divided on whether their leader, Stewart Rhodes, went too far on January 6, when he rallied Oath Keepers to breach the Capitol, Cooter said. Some members have been vocal about leaving the organization, citing Rhodes's leadership. In 2022, the Southern Poverty Law Center recorded five active Oath Keepers chapters, down from 70 in 2020. (The number of current chapters is not clear.) Meanwhile, the Proud Boys fractured in 2021, after Reuters uncovered court records indicating that Tarrio had served as an informant to local and federal law enforcement before the group was founded. ('I don't recall any of this,' Tarrio told Reuters at the time.) Many Proud Boys chapters disavowed him, including part of his own in Miami. The city now has two separate chapters, an anti-Tarrio and a pro-Tarrio one. In January, I emailed the Toledo Proud Boys chapter to ask about Tarrio. I received an unattributed reply expressing disappointment that Tarrio had 'turned his back and squealed on brothers.' I reached back out this week, and received a similar response: 'Tarrio is a rat, punk, and low life!' The respondent also said this: 'You breland, are exactly what President Trump said. .fake news! I'm sure you preferred the last potatoe!' (I asked if by 'the last potato,' the account meant Joe Biden. 'Ahhh yes. .SMH,' the respondent said. 'You know. .the illegitimate one! The stolen election one! The one who wandered around aimlessly!') The bigger reason that these far-right groups remain underground is that the Trump administration's aggressive agenda has left them with little to do. One of the motivating issues for the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and other extremist groups is strong opposition to undocumented immigrants. After the presidential election, a leader of the Texas chapter of the Three Percenters, a militia group, reportedly wrote to Trump to offer manpower in enacting mass deportations. But ICE and other federal agencies are engaging in forceful action against immigrants backed by the state in a way that surpasses what the Oath Keepers or the Proud Boys could ever do. ICE agents, not far-right militias, are the ones who have smashed through car windows, thrown people into unmarked vans, and detained them indefinitely. Even apart from immigration, 'groups are taking a hands-off approach right now because their interests are often aligned with the government,' Freddy Cruz, a researcher at the Western States Center, a nonprofit that tracks extremism, told me. The Proud Boys was started in 2016 in part to double down on traditional gender norms. Gavin McInnes, the group's founder, has described the Proud Boys as a 'pro-Western fraternity' for men who 'long for the days when girls were girls and men were men.' The Proud Boys' extreme pro-male views are less distinct than they once were, as MAGA has embraced Andrew Tate and other openly misogynistic figures of the so-called manosphere. As a result, the Proud Boys have one less point to rally around. Still, the Proud Boys and other right-wing militias might not stay underground forever. Under the right conditions, they could surge once again. 'These groups are really responsive to news cycles,' Cooter said. They have specific flash points—immigration, the Second Amendment, and supposed 'election integrity'—that can mobilize them in certain contexts, she explained. The Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and other established far-right groups still have infrastructure, a durable brand name, and the precedent that Trump might pardon them if things go awry. In May, Tarrio was reportedly invited to Mar-a-Lago, where he briefly spoke with Trump. Newer groups continue to organize. Patriot Front, for example, has teamed up with 'Active Clubs,' a loose network of white supremacists and neo-Nazis who run their own mixed-martial-arts fight clubs. Together, all of this could help give extremist groups a head start that they didn't have in the first Trump administration, when the Proud Boys and many other militia groups began to find their footing. The pieces are there, even if the moment isn't yet.
NBC News
2 hours ago
- NBC News
ICE releases Purdue student who was abruptly detained at her visa hearing
A Purdue University student and daughter of a prominent New York priest who was detained during a visa hearing last week has been released. Yeonsoo Go, 20, reunited with her family Monday night in downtown Manhattan. It comes after Go, who was handcuffed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents upon leaving her visa hearing, spent several days in a facility in Louisiana, according to the ICE database. Go came to the U.S. in 2021 on a religious dependent visa for children or spouses of religious workers temporarily in the country, Marissa Joseph, Go's attorney, told NBC News. Go, whose visa had been extended until December, was attempting to renew the visa because her mother had changed employers. It isn't clear why the student was targeted for detention, Joseph said. 'I'm just so grateful for the support that I've had,' Go told the crowd of supporters after she hugged her family. ICE did not immediately respond to NBC News' request to comment on the reasons behind Go's detention. And the Department of Homeland Security did not provide the family a reason for Go's release, Joseph said. DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin previously described Go in a statement as an 'illegal alien' who had overstayed her visa that expired more than two years ago. Go, who lives in Scarsdale, New York, with her mother, Kyrie Kim, came to the U.S. for Kim's work. Kim, who became the first woman ordained in the Seoul Diocese of the Anglican Church of Korea, had been invited to develop the Episcopal church's connection to Asian communities, said Mary Rothwell Davis, an attorney for the Episcopal Diocese of New York, where Go's mother is a reverend. 'It was an initiative to begin a new ministry, reaching out to Asian clergy, Asian families, and … to help strengthen and grow that aspect of our Episcopal and Anglican community,' Davis said, just hours before Go's release. 'Rev. Kim is the person who was chosen to do that.' Go, a rising sophomore at Purdue, had a smooth, uneventful visa hearing, Davis said, and was given a date to return to court. 'Everything seemed to go perfectly well,' Davis said. 'So she had no idea this was coming. None.' Davis said she has seen the visa herself and was unsure why McLaughlin had claimed Go overstayed her visa. 'We have no idea why they are alleging this, because we have a piece of paper that says she has a visa till December 2025,' Davis said. 'This is what lack of due process does. We have evidence on our side. They're making allegations. We are not being given the opportunity to sort it out.' Go's detention drew massive backlash across faith and local New York communities. Over the weekend, friends, loved ones and more gathered in downtown Manhattan to rally around the student. Davis said that as Go was being transferred to Louisiana from the facility in New York, she caught a glimpse of the supporters. 'She was leaving the building by bus, and she saw the Episcopal Diocese rally that was taking place in front of the courthouse,' Davis, who's been in constant communication with the family, said. 'It was very bittersweet.' New York Assemblymember Amy Paulin, who spoke to Go on the night of her release, said in a statement that she is 'overjoyed' that so many individuals spoke out for Go. 'The pain, fear, and uncertainty she and her family endured over the past five days should never have happened,' Paulin said in the statement. 'But tonight we celebrate her freedom and the strength of a community that refused to stay silent.' Kim told reporters that though she's relieved that her daughter is back home, it's also critical to remember that many others continue to contend with circumstances similar to Go's detention. 'There's more who need the support,' Kim said.
New York Post
2 hours ago
- New York Post
Arsonist attacks ICE office in Washington state, hurls rock through window
Federal immigration agents escaped an arson attack at their office in Yakima, Washington, over the weekend, The Post has learned. An unidentified crazed arsonist first threw a rock through a window of the building — which is listed as a field office on ICE's website — before setting a fire in the back of the property on Saturday, Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told The Post. Photos taken during the torching show flames charring the grass behind a chain link fence surrounding the building while a thick cloud of black smoke billowed above. Advertisement There were no injuries reported. 3 A cloud of black smoke billowed from the burning building. Department of Homeland Security 3 The fire was started behind a chain link fence that surrounded the building. Department of Homeland Security Advertisement While McLaughlin said it's not confirmed that immigration agents were the target of the firebombing, the building has public signage identifying it as a Department of Homeland Security office. The complex, 140 miles southeast of Seattle, is also home to a Washington state Department of Social and Health Services office. Assaults on ICE personnel are up 830% as the Trump administration pushes a mass deportation campaign, according to McLaughlin. She railed against sanctuary leaders for demonizing immigration agents. Advertisement 'Make no mistake, Democrat politicians like Hakeem Jeffries, Mayor Wu of Boston, Tim Walz, and Mayor Bass of Los Angeles are contributing to the surge in assaults of our ICE officers through their repeated vilification and demonization of ICE,' said McLaughlin. 'From comparisons to the modern-day Nazi gestapo to glorifying rioters, the violent rhetoric of these sanctuary politicians is beyond the pale,' she said. 3 Windows were found shattered following the attack. Department of Homeland Security She added: 'Secretary [Kristi] Noem has been clear: Anyone who seeks to harm law enforcement officers will be found and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.' Advertisement No officers were injured as a result of the attack and local cops are investigating as an act of arson. In another recent anti-ICE attack, rioters took to the streets of Los Angeles in June, hurling concrete blocks at federal officers working at the detention center downtown and setting Waymo autonomous cars ablaze. The agitators began the rampage in response to a deportation raid at a local Home Depot. President Trump later deployed 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines to the City of Angels to control the violence.
