Latest news with #Tarrio
Buzz Feed
4 days ago
- Politics
- Buzz Feed
Proud Boys Slam Trump For His Attack On Iran
The United States bombed underground uranium enrichment plants in Iran over the weekend, raising the specter of the U.S. plunging into yet another war in the Middle East. And President Donald Trump's far-right fanboys have three words for the man they have long proclaimed is the only leader fit to run the country. 'Fuck this shit,' a message from the Proud Boys Telegram account said Saturday. The missive appeared above a screengrab of the president's boasting on Truth Social after the U.S. bombing of Fordow, Natanza and Esfahan concluded and American planes had exited Iranian airspace. Only a week ago, the Proud Boys, perhaps known best for their assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, signaled that if Trump got the U.S. involved in a conflict between Israel and Iran, he would lose their support. Going to 'war for Israel' wasn't what Proud Boys signed up for when they voted for Trump last November, they said. After the bombings, the vitriol was high. One post on the Proud Boys Telegram appeared to compare Trump on the campaign trail versus Trump as president. An image of Trump on the campaign stump uses his official portrait. But as president, the Proud Boys used an image of Trump that appears to compare him to someone who is developmentally disabled. Insulting and degrading people — mostly women, immigrants and members of the LGBTQ+ community — is central to the group's foundational belief system. (The group's credo proclaims that 'western' men created the modern world and they 'refuse' to apologize for it.) The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday. After Trump became president again in January, one of his first acts was to pardon rioters who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. The pardons were sweeping and indiscriminate, including everyone from misdemeanor offenders to individuals who committed felony assault against police. Proud Boys leader Henry 'Enrique' Tarrio, who was charged and convicted for his role in plotting the Jan. 6 attack after a monthslong trial, received his pardon in January. Tarrio was on track to serve 22 years in prison, the longest sentence handed down to any Jan. 6 defendant. With his newfound freedom, he was effusive with Trump while simultaneously vowing revenge against the officials who had prosecuted him. Until last weekend, things seemed downright paradisiacal between the far-right group and Trump: In May, Tarrio met Trump briefly at Mar-a-Lago while both of them were dining at the Florida club. Tarrio had been invited by a club member, The New York Times reported, and as Trump passed by Tarrio, who was dining with his mother, they were introduced. Trump reportedly told Tarrio he believed the far-right leader and other Jan. 6 defendants had been horribly mistreated. HuffPost.
Miami Herald
7 days ago
- Politics
- Miami Herald
A Miami Proud Boy wants us to snitch for the government, Cuba-style
When Enrique Tarrio, the former Proud Boys leader recently pardoned by President Donald Trump, showed up at a 'No Kings' protest in downtown Miami Saturday, he was greeted by chants of 'Send him back to jail' by protesters. But Tarrio wasn't there to make a political statement. He was there to promote an app called ICERAID that encourages users to report undocumented immigrants in exchange for cryptocurrency. He calls it patriotism. It's something far more dangerous. We've seen this tactic before. In 1960, Fidel Castro stood before a euphoric crowd in Havana and announced the creation of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution — los comités — neighborhood watch groups that turned into grassroots informant networks. Their mission: expose Cubans seen as disloyal to the revolution. It was surveillance disguised as civic duty. Over six decades later, those networks still exist. And now, Tarrio — himself the son of Cuban exiles who fled that oppressive system — is championing a digital version. Instead of turning in 'counterrevolutionaries,' the new enemy is the undocumented immigrant. And instead of whispering to secret police, app users upload photos and locations of 'suspects' — and receive crypto as a reward. Until recently, Tarrio was serving a 22-year sentence for his seditious conspiracy conviction for his involvement in organizing the Jan. 6 attack. Now, though, he's dubbed himself the ICERAID czar and aligned himself with the Trump-era playbook of encouraging civilian tip-offs to fuel immigration crackdowns. The app has no official affiliation with the federal government. But it coincides with a troubling Department of Homeland Security campaign featuring a vintage-style Uncle Sam urging Americans to 'Report All Foreign Invaders.' The message is unmistakable: Spy on your neighbors. That's the same message Tarrio is pushing with this app. This is not patriotism. It's vigilantism cloaked in red-white-and-blue. Tarrio — who identifies as as Afro-Cuban, the Herald reported, and grew up in Little Havana — knows that Miami's Cuban exile community was shaped by the trauma of political surveillance and persecution. And yet, here he is, promoting the very thing so many Cuban families fled. In Castro's Cuba, a whisper could ruin a life. In Tarrio's America, a photo upload could mean detention and deportation. In Cuba, informants earned perks and privileges from the government for turning in those who did not support Castro's revolution. Here, it's crypto coins. But the goal is the same: normalize suspicion of one another and persecute and punish the perceived 'other.' What this app is encouraging people to do is not about protecting borders. It's not about law and order. It's about validating people's worst instincts — to profile, to assume guilt, to fuel the Trump administration-sponsored paranoia against immigrants. It doesn't take much imagination to see where this inform-on-your-neighbor fervor inevitably leads. Even ICE officials admits many of the tips they receive today come from jealous exes, spiteful neighbors and professional rivals. An app will only make that worse. All of this, of course, is unfolding against a backdrop of national political tension. Scapegoating immigrants is, once again, politically convenient. But that doesn't make it right; it makes it cruel. When governments — or their proxies like Tarrio — encourage citizens to turn on each other, the casualties aren't just those who are accused. It's democracy itself. Let's not make informing on a neighbor a civic virtue or a patriotic duty. And let's hope this app — and the ideology behind it — is a bust. Click here to send the letter.
Miami Herald
14-06-2025
- Politics
- Miami Herald
What was a Proud Boys leader doing at a Miami anti-Trump rally? Take a look
Former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio was spotted Saturday at a No Kings protest near the Torch of Friendship in downtown Miami. No Kings protests spread out across South Florida and the country Saturday as thousands of people demonstrated against President Donald Trump's policies on how he's handling immigration, budget cuts and a $45 million military parade in Washington. MORE: 'What democracy looks like.' Why thousands marched in South Florida protests As one of his first executive orders upon taking office for his second term in January, Trump pardoned Tarrio for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the nation's Capitol. Tarrio is now promoting an app that lets citizens report undocumented immigrants — and get paid for it. He told reporters he ventured into the Miami protest crowds to interview people for the app. Tarrio chose the Miami No Kings protest among the nearly 80 in Florida and thousands of similar demonstrations against Trump across the country because he expected a peaceful reception, he told South Florida TV station NBC 6. Aside from some shouts and a few raised middle fingers in his direction, Tarrio seemed to get what he wanted. 'You know, it's Miami. DeSantis is the governor. We know that. So I didn't expect anything here. Maybe in another location we might see something. But for the most part here, it's been peaceful,' Tarrio told the station. 'But I disagree with all these people; I actually agree with them on the message — no kings in the United States. And what we're seeing now is a judicial coup in the United States by these unelected federal judges going against Article II in the Constitution, which is the executive branch. So, you know, I'm just here. What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna interview some people. Keep it friendly. We got our cameras out. We're ready to go so I'm hoping everybody has a fun day.'
Miami Herald
12-06-2025
- Politics
- Miami Herald
Proud Boy Enrique Tarrio wants you to report undocumented people – and get paid for it
Enrique Tarrio, the former Proud Boys leader from Miami who President Donald Trump pardoned for his participation in the Jan. 6 attack, wants citizens to take deporting undocumented immigrants into their own hands. Literally, he has an app for that. Tarrio has announced he will be the 'czar' of an independent organization that pays people cryptocurrency for reporting undocumented migrants. Enrique Tarrio, who until recently was serving a 22-year sentence for seditious conspiracy charges for his involvement organizing the Jan. 6 attack, promoted a web app called on his X account. The app crowdsources tips to help law enforcement arrest and deport immigrants. The group, while not affiliated with the U.S. government, aims to support the Trump administration's crackdown on immigration. 'I am honored to serve as ICERAID Czar and to lead a platform that empowers Americans to protect our nation's values and security,' said Tarrio in a statement. Tarrio's involvement as a spokesperson for the initiative comes as the Trump administration separately encourages people to report suspected undocumented people to federal authorities. On Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security published a vintage-style image featuring Uncle Sam hammering a poster to a wall that said 'Help Your Country…and Yourself…Report All Foreign Invaders' and listed ICE's hotline. 'Help your country locate and arrest illegal aliens,' the agency said in the social media post sharing the image. Immigrants' rights activists and community leaders say they worry that the government's campaign encouraging citizens to report undocumented immigrants will turn communities on each other. They also worry that some individuals will weaponize reports to abuse or intimidate undocumented immigrants in the workplace or in personal relationships. ICE's top investigator in Puerto Rico recently told NPR that tips to her agency have come in from businesses reporting on competition or people outing neighbors and ex-partners. In a press release, ICERAID described Tarrio as a 'staunch defender of American values' who would oversee the app's 'strategic growth, community engagement, and partnerships, ensuring that it remains a beacon of patriotism.' Users will be able to snap photos of people they believe are violating immigration laws and upload them to the platform along with a brief description. Other crimes that can be reported include obstruction of justice, drug trafficking, terrorism, and animal cruelty. The app generates a color coded map where users can see others' reports. The app's website cautions that privacy laws vary state by state and features an extensive guide on surveillance laws — 'for informational purposes only.' It singles out Florida's privacy laws, which require consent to be recorded in private settings. Tarrio said that people who make reports will get paid in a cryptocurrency known as $RAID and that the app will roll out weekly contests so users can get 'bonuses on your bounties.' He also emphasized that people should make reports directly to federal and local authorities, including ICE. 'The more images and locations you upload and validate, the more $RAID you earn,' the ICERaid webpage reads. 'We need to incentivize our citizens to help ICE with these deportations. And this is how you do it,' said Tarrio on a right-wing podcast on Wednesday. The app also says that undocumented immigrants can 'earn a large reward if you pursue a legal status in the United States through self reporting using the ICERAID application.' However, only federal authorities can confer anyone legal immigration status, which the ICERAID webpage acknowledges, as well as that it's not an official government website. Tarrio, who identifies as afro-Cuban, grew up in Little Havana. He was previously the state director of Latinos for Trump in Florida. He was the chairman of the Proud Boys when members of the extremist, white nationalist group stormed the Capitol with other pro-Trump organizations. Several Proud Boys were among the nearly 1,600 people charged or convicted in relation to the Jan. 6 incident. Although Tarrio himself was not in Washington D.C. on Jan. 6, the Department of Justice viewed him as one of the masterminds of the insurrection. In September 2023, he and other Proud Boys were convicted for conspiring to impede Congress from certifying Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election. In January, Trump issued a sweeping pardon to individuals convicted for criminal charges related to Jan. 6. READ MORE: Enrique Tarrio, sentenced for central role in Jan. 6 plot, is freed by Trump Last week, Tarrio and four other Proud Boys filed a federal lawsuit in Orlando against the Department of Justice and the FBI. The lawsuit claims that the federal government violated their constitutional rights and that their prosecution in the Jan. 6 cases were politically motivated. The men seek $100 million in damages. Now that Tarrio is a free man, he's focused on promoting the citizen policing web app. He spoke extensively about it on the podcast Wednesday, where Barry Ramey, a Proud Boy from Plantation who Trump pardoned for assaulting two officers with pepper spray, joked that the app was 'the conservative version of that Pokemon game that came out years ago.' 'Perfect example. This is like Pokemon,' Tarrio replied, laughing. 'I'll talk to the developers, see if we can get a catch phrase similar to 'Gotta catch them all'.'
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Proud Boys' lawsuit is legally unsound — but DOJ will likely just surrender
The $100 million lawsuit filed by leaders of the far-right militant group the Proud Boys is legally unsound — but it has an excellent chance of success. The plaintiffs — Henry 'Enrique' Tarrio and four others — had been found guilty of seditious conspiracy and other crimes arising from their roles in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol that interfered with the transition of power following Joe Biden's victory over Donald Trump in the 2020 election. The lawsuit's excellent chance of a successful outcome for Tarrio and his co-defendants-turned-co-plaintiffs rests entirely on the current Justice Department's will to defend itself, which seems non-existent judging by DOJ's recent capitulation in the wrongful death case brought by the estate of Ashli Babbitt, a Trump supporter shot and killed while trying to breach the House Speaker's Lobby on Jan. 6. The Babbitt case appeared weak. An investigation by the U.S. Capitol Police found that the officer had acted lawfully in shooting Babbitt, and a joint investigation by the D.C. police department and DOJ found no evidence that the officer had done anything other than act in self-defense of himself and members of Congress — who were actively being evacuated in the face of the Capitol attack at the time Babbitt climbed over a barricade and through a broken glass window to get into the Speaker's Lobby. The U.S. Attorney's Office for D.C. and the DOJ's Civil Rights Section jointly decided no criminal charges against the officer were warranted. Nevertheless, the Trump DOJ paid Babbitt's estate $5 million to settle. The Proud Boys case looks even weaker. Tarrio and the other plaintiffs are essentially re-arguing defenses they made at their trials: Their constitutional rights were violated under various theories, including due process, the right to a speedy trial and claims of unreasonable search and seizures. But one problem for them is these defenses were all rejected at trial and they were convicted and sentenced for their crimes. Bringing a civil suit for a wrongful prosecution in which the defendant(s) were convicted would be nearly impossible without that conviction being overturned on appeal. The other problem is that their case is brought primarily upon the so-called Bivens doctrine, which has fallen extremely out of favor with the courts. The doctrine arose from a 1971 Supreme Court case allowing plaintiff Webster Bivens to seek damages against federal agents for violating his Fourth Amendment rights in an illegal search and arrest. But since 1971, the Supreme Court has repeatedly denied Bivens as a remedy and federal trial courts — and appeals courts — have dismissed hundreds of lawsuits based on Bivens, which had led to the conclusion that the Bivens remedy is nearly dead. Professor Dennis Fan, a former DOJ civil attorney, told The Hill that it's 'essentially impossible' to bring a Bivens claim these days. The other basis for the Proud Boys' suit relies on the Federal Torts Claim Act to recover under a liability theory of malicious prosecution — a liability that Rupa Bhattacharyya, former director of DOJ's Torts Branch, describes as 'really, really low.' But likely outweighing all the legal hurdles for the Proud Boys' lawsuit are Trump's pardons of Tarrio and commutations of sentences for his co-plaintiffs. The pardons — not just of the Proud Boys but also of 1,600 defendants charged in the Jan. 6 attack — immeasurably complicate DOJ's potential defense against the lawsuit. The pardon and commutation language used by Trump states that it is ending 'a grave national injustice' — and during the signing ceremony, Trump described the Jan. 6 defendants as 'hostages' and said: 'What they've done to these people is outrageous. There's rarely been anything like it in the history of our country.' Tarrio also has written of his conversation with Trump at Mar-a-Lago where Trump told him that he was sorry for what President Joe Biden had done to Jan. 6 defendants and told him, 'I love you guys.' Both the language in the pardon and commutations and Trump's characterizations and apologies make a settlement nearly the only outcome. Indeed, a trial of the claims could result in the absurdity of Trump and other Trump administration officials testifying against DOJ's defense of its actions — in essence the administration testifying against itself. Nor would a judge be inclined to reject such a settlement. While theoretically a judge may refuse to accept a settlement, those instances typically involve cases that give a judge more authority over settlements. for example class actions like the Purdue Pharma opioid settlement case, in which the judge objected to a provision that would have protected the Sackler family from litigation. A settlement would have big financial consequences for taxpayers. The damage caused by the Jan. 6 attack is estimated by Congress' audit arm to be $2.7 billion, of which only $3 million was to be repaid in the form of restitution by Jan. 6 defendants. Whatever restitution was owed is wiped clean by the pardons and commutations, and the DOJ has already supported giving a refund to the defendants of any money already paid. It would also likely cause a flood of similar lawsuits from perhaps all of the 1,600 pardoned/commuted Jan. 6 defendants — which could add millions, maybe even hundreds of millions, to the tab. Such an income stream fits well with Trump's idea of creating a 'compensation fund' for pardoned Jan 6 rioters even as it would — in the words of history professor Allan J. Lichtman — send a 'horrendous message' that would legitimize 'violent insurrections.' Lichtman compared the settlements process to 'white supremacists during the Jim Crow era recasting Confederates who fought in the Civil War as 'noble.'' Essentially, the Trump administration could be creating reparations packages for Jan. 6 rioters. This article was originally published on
