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USA Today
6 days ago
- Politics
- USA Today
Trump officials tour Alcatraz as president keeps pushing to reopen 'The Rock'
Attorney General Pam Bondi and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum visited Alcatraz, the infamous prison island that Trump has said he wants to reopen. Attorney General Pam Bondi visited Alcatraz on July 17, the infamous federal prison island in the San Francisco Bay that President Donald Trump has said he wants to reopen to house the country's "most ruthless and violent" criminal offenders. Bondi toured the site long known as "the Rock" alongside Secretary for the Interior Doug Burgum, whose agency operates the popular tourist site via the National Park Service. During their visit, the Trump Cabinet officials directed staff to help with the Republican administration's plans for rehabilitating and reopening it, according to a source familiar with the matter. "Alcatraz is the brand known around the world for being effective at housing people that are in incarceration," Burgum said in a Fox News interview. "Part of this would be to test the feasibility about returning it back to its original use." Trump said in a May 4 Truth Social post that he was directing the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which Bondi oversees, to reopen and enlarge the prison that once housed notorious mob boss Al Capone. The prison was shuttered in 1963 after being deemed too expensive to keep operating, according to the bureau's website. "The reopening of ALCATRAZ will serve as a symbol of Law, Order, and JUSTICE," Trump posted earlier this spring. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose congressional district includes San Francisco, said in a July 16 statement ahead of the visit that it was "a diversionary tactic" to distract from Trump's so-called "Big Beautiful Bill" – legislation that was signed into law July 4 that slashes both taxes and benefit programs like Medicaid. "It remains to be seen how this Administration could possibly afford to spend billions to convert and maintain Alcatraz as a prison when they are already adding trillions of dollars to the national debt with their sinful law," Pelosi said. Alongside the expressed plans to open the prison island, the Trump administration has dubbed a migrant detention center that was recently reopened in the Florida Everglades "Alligator Alcatraz." Alcatraz island opened to the public in 1973 and attracts more than one million visitors each year, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Contributing: Reuters
Toronto Sun
11-07-2025
- Politics
- Toronto Sun
Kilmar Abrego Garcia could be deported to Mexico or South Sudan, ICE official tells judge
Published Jul 10, 2025 • 4 minute read Protestors call for the release of Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was deported to CECOT prison in El Salvador before the administration of US President Donald Trump admitted he was sent there due to an "administrative error," outside the Metropolitan Detention Center of the Federal Bureau of Prisons during a May Day Workers Unite! march in Los Angeles, California, on May 1, 2025. Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON / AFP via Getty Images GREENBELT, Md. (AP) — The Trump administration hasn't decided where it would deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia if he is freed from a Tennessee jail, but a U.S. immigration official said Thursday that Mexico and South Sudan could be willing to accept the El Salvador native. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account Thomas Giles, an assistant director for U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, testified in a Maryland federal court that ICE would detain Abrego Garcia as soon as he's released to await trial on human smuggling charges. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis is considering Abrego Garcia's request to order the U.S. government to send him to Maryland instead, a bid aimed at preventing the Trump administration from trying to deport him again. Abrego Garcia became a flashpoint over Republican President Donald Trump's immigration policies when the Salvadoran national was wrongfully deported to his native country in March. Facing mounting pressure and a U.S. Supreme Court order, the administration returned him last month to face the smuggling charges. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. The charges stem from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee for speeding. Abrego Garcia was driving a vehicle with nine passengers without any luggage, prompting police to suspect human smuggling. However, he was allowed to drive on. Abrego Garcia's lawyers have called the charges 'preposterous' and argue that deporting him will deprive him from defending himself at trial. Justice Department attorneys have countered that he's a danger. A federal judge in Tennessee could release Abrego Garcia as soon as next Wednesday. A four-hour court hearing in Maryland on Thursday focused on what ICE would do. Sascha Rand, an attorney for Abrego Garcia, pressed Giles for information about any due process that Abrego Garcia might receive in the U.S. immigration court system. He also asked the ICE official how Abrego Garcia would be treated in a country such as Mexico or South Sudan. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'We're not going to send people to a country where they're going to get persecuted or tortured,' Giles said. Rand asked Giles if Abrego Garcia was persecuted or tortured at the notorious Salvadoran megaprison the Trump administration sent him to in March. 'I don't know,' Giles said. Abrego Garcia's lawyers recently alleged in court documents that he was beaten and subjected to psychological torture at the facility. El Salvador President Nayib Bukele denied the allegations. Rand also asked Giles if Abrego Garcia would be removed without any notice or procedures, to which Giles said 'no.' The ICE official said Abrego Garcia could express a fear of going to the country he's being sent to, which could trigger a review process. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Giles said he assumed someone would immediately have to express that fear. 'We're talking about minutes or seconds here?' Rand asked. The person can still get an interview if the fear is expressed before the plane takes off, Giles said. If a 'credible fear' is determined, that person will be referred to an immigration judge for a final determination. Xinis, the judge, briefly brought up the possibility of a 48-hour pause on any attempts to deport Abrego Garcia. However, no agreement was made. Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, another attorney for Abrego Garcia, told reporters outside the Maryland courtroom that the government wouldn't agree to a 48-hour pause. The hearing will resume Friday morning. Abrego Garcia has pleaded not guilty to the smuggling charges in Tennessee. A federal judge in Nashville was preparing to release him, determining he was not a flight risk or a danger. But the judge has agreed to keep him behind bars over his legal team's deportation concerns. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Abrego Garcia's lawyers have asked that judge to delay his release until a July 16 court hearing in Nashville to consider a request by prosecutors to revoke Abrego Garcia's release order while he awaits trial. When the administration deported Abrego Garcia in March, it violated a U.S. immigration judge's order in 2019 that shielded Abrego Garcia from being sent to his native country. The immigration judge had determined that Abrego Garcia likely faced persecution by local gangs that had terrorized him and his family. Abrego Garcia's wife is suing the administration over his deportation in March and is trying to prevent him from being expelled again. Her lawsuit is being handled by Xinis, the judge in Maryland. Abrego Garcia lived and worked in the state for more than a decade, working construction and raising a family, before he was deported. The administration claimed that it deported Abrego Garcia because was in the MS-13 gang, although Abrego Garcia wasn't charged and has repeatedly denied the allegation. Read More Celebrity Toronto & GTA Toronto & GTA Toronto Blue Jays Canada
Yahoo
10-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
George Santos heads to prison, insists foul play is to blame if he dies behind bars
Disgraced former Congressman George Santos assured fans on Wednesday as he headed to prison that if he dies while serving his sentence, that wasn't his plan. 'I'm heading to prison, folks, and I need you to hear this loud and clear: I'm not suicidal. I'm not depressed. I have no intentions of harming myself,' the former Republican representative posted on X. Santos was sentenced to 87 months behind bars in April after copping to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft in a Long Island courtroom. He was given until July 25 to surrender to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. The 36-year-old's sentencing followed his 2023 expulsion from the House of Representatives to which he was elected on a campaign built on lies about nearly all of his qualifications. Santos told his social media followers Wednesday that should something happen while he's incarcerated, they should not to believe any stories they might hear about him harming himself. 'If anything comes out suggesting otherwise, consider it a lie…full stop,' he said. 'So if something does happen, there's no confusion. I did NOT kill myself.' The ex-rep's comments appeared to reference the 2019 death of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, who died of suicide by hanging at Manhattan's Metropolitan Correctional Center while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. Despite numerous investigations, MAGA loyalists like Santos have refused to believe that Epstein killed himself. According to right-wing conspiracy theorists, Epstein was instead murdered by a 'deep state' in order to protect people he may have facilitated through child sex trafficking. Trump loyalists in the Justice Department have asserted that Epstein killed himself and didn't keep a 'client list' implicating powerful people in politics, entertainment and business, but the demand for information stating otherwise continues among hardcore believers.
Straits Times
24-06-2025
- Straits Times
Suspect in bombing at California fertility clinic dies in federal custody
Investigators gather after a bomb exploded near a reproductive health facility in Palm Springs, California, U.S. May 17, 2025. REUTERS/Amanda Villegas/File Photo A suspect in the bombing of a California fertility clinic in May has died in federal custody, the Federal Bureau of Prisons said on Tuesday. Daniel Park, 32, of Washington state, was found unresponsive Tuesday morning at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles, the Bureau of Prisons said in a statement. Facility employees "initiated life-saving measures" on Park who was then transported to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead. The FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service were notified, the bureau said. When asked about a cause and manner of death, the Bureau of Prisons provided a statement that did not specify if a cause or manner of death had been determined. Park was arrested in June following the May 17 bombing at the clinic in Palm Springs, approximately 100 miles east of Los Angeles. The bombing killed one person, the primary suspect, Guy Bartkus, and injured several others. Officials alleged that Park had secured 270 pounds of ammonium nitrate for Bartkus and that he had shared Bartkus' views. Park was not in California at the time of the bombing and was detained in Poland by Polish authorities after the bombing. U.S. authorities took him into custody in New York. The Bureau of Prisons said Park arrived at the Los Angeles facility on June 13 and was awaiting trial after being indicted for malicious destruction of property. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Politico
17-06-2025
- Politics
- Politico
Former Sen. Bob Menendez reports to prison for 11-year sentence
Former Sen. Bob Menendez began his 11-year prison sentence Tuesday morning, the Federal Bureau of Prisons said. The New Jersey Democrat, 71, was at the height of his power in 2023, as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, when federal prosecutors in New York revealed allegations based on a yearslong investigation that he'd sold his office for piles of cash and bars of gold. Now, he's at Federal Correctional Institution Schuylkill in Minersville, Pennsylvania. Following a two-month trial last summer, a jury found Menendez guilty on 16 counts, including bribery, acting as a foreign agent for Egypt, obstruction of justice, extortion and conspiring to commit those crimes along with a pair of businesspeople. The businesspeople — Wael Hana, an Egyptian-American, and Fred Daibes, a prominent real estate developer — already began their sentences of eight and seven years, respectively. Menendez is one of only a few senators to have ever served time and the last since another New Jersey Democrat, Sen. Harrison Williams Jr., went to prison in the 1980s after being caught up in the FBI's Abscam sting operation. Before he was sentenced in January, Menendez and his attorney asked for mercy — arguing he'd already been punished, having lost public office and being subjected to widespread mockery as 'Gold Bar Bob.' 'Other than family, I have lost everything I ever cared about,' a tearful Menendez told U.S. District Court Judge Sidney Stein. Present in the courtroom were his two adult children, including his son, Rep. Rob Menendez. Stein did not spare him, though, and said Menendez had succumbed to greed and hubris, going from someone who had stood up to corruption in New Jersey politics early in his career to someone who now himself was corrupt. 'Somewhere along the way, I don't know where, you lost your way,' Stein said. Menendez has in recent weeks taken to social media to decry the case against him, posts that many view as attempts to get a pardon from President Donald Trump. The federal investigation of Menendez appears to have begun in 2019, when Trump was president. Menendez, Daibes and Hana are still appealing their convictions, with a team of experienced attorneys who have vowed to fight as long as it takes. There are issues in the case, including the scope of the Constitution's 'speech or debate' protections, that seem destined to intrigue appeals court judges and perhaps eventually the Supreme Court. In particular, Menendez's appeal focuses on rulings Stein made during the trial. Menendez objected to some of the evidence that prosecutors were allowed to share with jurors. Then, after the trial, prosecutors admitted even some evidence the judge ruled should not be shown to jurors was provided to jurors on a laptop they had access to during their deliberations. While it wasn't enough to keep him from starting his sentence, Menendez persuaded one judge in three-judge appeals court panel to last week back his request for bail pending appeal. During a separate hearing, Daibes attorney Paul Clement, who served as solicitor general for President George W. Bush, also seemed to get appeals court judges' attention on the speech or debate issues in the case.
