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Atlantic
15 hours ago
- Politics
- Atlantic
America Just Beat Up These Marines' Dad
The four men in jeans and tactical vests labeled Police: U.S. Border Patrol had Narciso Barranco surrounded. Their masks and hats concealed their faces, so that only their eyes were visible. When they'd approached him, he was doing landscape work outside of an IHOP in Santa Ana, California. Frightened, Barranco attempted to run away. By the time a bystander started filming, the agents had caught him and pinned him, face down, on the road. One crouches and begins to pummel him, repeatedly, in the head. You can hear Barranco moaning in pain. Eventually, the masked men drag him to his feet and try to shove him into an SUV. When Barranco resists, one agent takes a rod and wedges it under his neck, attempting to steer him into the vehicle as if prodding livestock. Barranco is the father of three sons, all of them United States Marines. The eldest brother is a veteran, and the younger men are on active duty. At any moment, the same president who sent an emboldened ICE after their father could also command them into battle. That president has described Latinos as 'criminals' and 'anchor babies,' but the Barrancos and so many like them, immigrants or the children of immigrants, are not 'invading' America; they're defending it. In 2015, 12 percent of active-duty service members identified as Hispanic. By 2023, that number had increased to 19.5 percent. In the Marine Corps, the proportion was closer to 28 percent. Latinas are more represented in the military than in the civilian workforce—21 percent of enlisted women compared with 18 percent of working women. (One explanation might be the military's guaranteed equal pay: In the civilian workforce, Latinas earn just 65 cents on the dollar compared with white men.) Communities of color have long been targets for military recruitment. When I went to public high school in Brooklyn in the '90s, recruitment officers used to visit classrooms. The military offers financial stability, a route to college. But for many Latinos, as for other immigrant groups, it offers more: a path to belonging, whether for citizens who have been treated as outsiders in their own nation, or for the undocumented. Immigrants who serve at least a year in any branch of the armed forces can become eligible for naturalized citizenship. In 1917, just before entering World War I, the United States passed the Jones-Shafroth Act, bestowing citizenship (but not a right to representation) on Puerto Ricans. This would have the effect of making them eligible for the draft when it was instituted a few months later. An estimated 18,000 to 20,000 Puerto Rican recruits were soon shipped off to fight in Europe. During World War II, approximately 15,000 Mexican nationals fought in American uniforms, many earning citizenship. This was in addition to the 500,000 American Latinos of Mexican and Puerto Rican descent who enlisted and fought for their country, including my own grandfather. He was a decorated member of the 9th Infantry Division who fought in Tunisia, landed in Normandy, and was one of the first American soldiers to make it into Germany. He was proud of his role in history, but also of the lifelong friendships that he, a Puerto Rican man from Brooklyn, had with veterans from across the country. In one oral history, Armando Flores, a veteran of World War II, recounts a lieutenant scolding him in his early days of service: 'American soldiers stand at attention.' Rather than feeling chastened, Flores was stunned. ' Nobody had ever called me an American until that time.' Hispanic veterans came home to a country where signs were posted in Texas restaurant windows announcing: No Dogs Negroes Mexicans. Like their African American counterparts, many were the victims of redlining that prevented them from buying homes. Latino veterans created the American GI Forum to demand that benefits such as medical care and burial rights be available to Latino as well as white veterans. During the Vietnam War, Latinos were about 5 percent of the U.S. population, but they accounted for an estimated 20 percent of the 60,000 American casualties. This country has a long history of treating the veterans who have served it shoddily. And yet what's happening now—as Donald Trump's agents violently detain some Latinos in the streets as other Latinos serve their country in strikes against Iran—feels extreme. Johnathan Hernandez, a city councilman in Santa Ana, where Barranco was beaten, describes what's happening in his community as a kind of war itself. Santa Ana is 77 percent Hispanic. It has become a popular target for ICE. Hernandez told me that he is seeing 'a culture of fear, a culture of people not feeling safe, and people feeling under attack.' He said he worked to get the video posted on social media because no one knew who the man in it was, and he hoped that someone in the tight-knit community could identify him. 'Because of the fact that these agents are unidentified and they're taking people without due process, it means that you're leaving very little for a family to be able to put the pieces together and find their loved ones,' he said. A woman saw the video on Instagram and commented that it was her friends' father. Nearly 24 hours after the violent encounter, Barranco's eldest son, Alejandro, was able to finally make contact with his father, who said he still had not received medical care, and that he was hungry and thirsty. (The Department of Homeland Security claimed that Barranco had 'assaulted' agents with his string trimmer— sharing a video in which he can be seen turning toward the agents and briefly lifting it—and that he had declined medical care.) In interviews with news agencies, Alejandro said that he and his brothers 'feel hurt; we feel betrayed.' Their father taught them to 'respect this country, thank this country, and then that led us to join the Marine Corps and kind of give back to the country and be thankful,' he said. Alejandro was deployed to Kabul in 2021, when the U.S. was evacuating from Afghanistan. Had a Marine treated a detainee the way that the Border Patrol agents treated his father, he told MSNBC, it would have been considered a war crime. He also spoke with Task & Purpose, which covers the military. 'I don't believe that they followed their training,' he said about the agents. 'Repeatedly punching a man in the face while he's on the ground while he's been maced or pepper-sprayed, I don't believe that that was in their training.' (He also noted that the agents could be seen running with their weapons, which is 'a very unprofessional way of holding a firearm.') Many Latinos are sharing in the Barranco family's trauma. We are a highly diverse identity group, whose common bonds can feel tenuous at best. Forty-eight percent of the Latinos who voted in the 2024 election chose Trump—and many Latino members of the military, which tends to lean more conservative than the general population, were probably among them. And yet even some of those Trump voters, seeing on a daily basis the violence and haphazard cruelty with which the Trump administration is executing its mass-deportation agenda, must share my terror and anger. (ICE's recent actions have already led some of Trump's supporters to regret their vote.) How can any Latinos feel secure if 'looking' Hispanic or speaking Spanish or even going to Home Depot puts you at risk? How would you feel if you were deployed half a world away and wondering each day if your mother or father or sister or brother or wife might have been snatched up by ICE? This is a personal question for Latino soldiers, but it is a personnel question for the secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security, who have to worry about military morale as an essential dimension of combat power. The psychological toll of ICE raids isn't borne only by the new immigrants whom Trump calls 'invaders,' but also by many of the Americans tasked with protecting us from real foreign threats. In the barracks at Camp Pendleton where the younger Barranco brothers sleep, they must be struggling to focus on their mission while fearing for the safety of their father in the hands of the very government they are sworn to defend.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Maine governor comes face to face with Canadian travel fears
Maine's governor was confronted on Tuesday with the reality of how fearful some New Brunswickers are about visiting the United States while U.S. President Donald Trump is in the White House. Janet Mills was in Fredericton for the second day of a tour through Atlantic Canada, hoping to reverse — or at least slow — a steep decline in the number of tourists crossing the border to visit Maine. She and Premier Susan Holt delivered a joint ode to cross-border connections to a Fredericton Chamber of Commerce audience largely concerned about the impact of tariffs on their businesses. But two questions from participants brought into sharp relief how immigration raids and the rolling back of trans rights is scaring some Canadians away from U.S. visits. "A lot of members of the queer community — a lot of Canadians feel unsafe, Canadians who are 2SLGBTQI+ absolutely feel unsafe going there," said Vivian Myers-Jones, a member of the Saint John Pride board. "It's a terrifying thing going down there right now." Myers-Jones plans to travel to Bangor this weekend for Pride events there as part of a partnership between organizers in the two cities, but said many other members of the community are afraid to go. Another member of the audience, business owner David Dennis, said his Venezuelan-born wife vetoed a planned trip to Maine this year despite his attempts to assure her that having Canadian citizenship would protect her at the border. "Her fellow countrymen had been targeted for deportation and her comment was, 'I'm not going to the States this year,'" he told the two political leaders. WATCH | 'It's a terrifying thing, going down there': Premier, governor hear concerns: Even before the question-and-answer session, Holt herself used the U.S. political situation to encourage New Brunswickers to travel within the province this summer — as she has been since the Trump administration first announced tariffs on Canadian exports. "Lots of people don't feel safe in the U.S. right now and for good reason, and until that changes I think the climate for visitors will be difficult," she said. Mills said Maine has among the lowest crime rates in the U.S. and Canadians should feel secure hiking, skiing, swimming and shopping there. "You can do that safely," she said. She acknowledged as governor she has no control over how the U.S. Border Patrol or Immigration and Customs Enforcement operate in the state. "But for the most part, they're busy in other places. They know that the relationships between Calais and St. Stephen, Madawaska and Edmundston, are sacred, and I don't think they want to damage those relationships either," she said. After the 90-minute session wrapped up, Mills approached Dennis while he was speaking to reporters and hugged him. "Tell your wife we'll keep her safe," she said. The governor said she could understand Canadian angst "when you hear one or two stories on a 4,000-mile border. It can be scary and people have a right to feel anxiety. But tens of thousands of people are crossing the border every day." She called New Brunswick's multiple border crossings with Maine "the safest places in the world to cross an international border." Holt acknowledged that Mills opposes Trump's policies, even challenging them in court. But she said the governor's assurances that federal immigration crackdowns are happening far from Maine won't persuade everyone. "Not knowing where they're going to be next makes it a really uncertain environment for anyone who feels they might be targeted [by] ICE," Holt said. Visits by New Brunswickers to Maine have been down by about one-third this year compared to last year. Holt is spending this week travelling around New Brunswick with Tourism Minister Isabelle Thériault to promote various destinations within the province.
The Star
2 days ago
- Politics
- The Star
US military to create two new border zones, officials say
FILE PHOTO: A U.S. Border Patrol vehicle patrols along the border wall, following the establishment of a 260-mile military zone along the southern U.S. border in New Mexico and Texas as part of the Trump administration's crackdown on immigration, in Sunland Park, New Mexico, U.S., May 20, 2025. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez/File Photo WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Pentagon will create two new military zones along the border with Mexico, U.S. officials said on Wednesday, a move that allows troops to temporarily detain migrants or trespassers. President Donald Trump's administration has hailed its actions along the border, including the deployment of active duty troops, as the reason for a sharp decline in crossings by undocumented migrants. Trump made voters' concerns about immigration a cornerstone of his 2024 re-election bid. The Pentagon has already created two military zones, but only four people have been temporarily detained on them, a U.S. official said. A new "National Defense Area" will be created covering about 250 miles (402 km) of the Rio Grande river in Texas and administered as a part of Joint Base San Antonio, according to the Air Force. The U.S. officials said the other military zone would be administered as a part of Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma, Arizona. The zones are intended to allow the Trump administration to use troops to detain migrants without invoking the 1807 Insurrection Act that empowers a president to deploy the U.S. military to suppress events such as civil disorder. As legal deterrents to border crossers, the zones have had mixed results. Federal magistrate judges in New Mexico and Texas dismissed trespassing charges against dozens of migrants caught in the areas on grounds they did not know they were in a restricted military zone. However, some 120 migrants pleaded guilty to trespassing in the first Texas zone in May and federal prosecutors obtained their first two trespassing convictions for the New Mexico zone on June 18, according to U.S. Attorneys' Offices in the two states. Around 11,900 troops are currently on the border. Illegal border crossings fell to a record low in March after the Biden administration shut down asylum claims in 2024 and Mexico tightened immigration controls. (Reporting by Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart. Additional reporting by Andrew Hay; Editing by Nia Williams)
Straits Times
2 days ago
- Politics
- Straits Times
US military to create two new border zones, officials say
FILE PHOTO: A U.S. Border Patrol vehicle patrols along the border wall, following the establishment of a 260-mile military zone along the southern U.S. border in New Mexico and Texas as part of the Trump administration's crackdown on immigration, in Sunland Park, New Mexico, U.S., May 20, 2025. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez/File Photo US military to create two new border zones, officials say WASHINGTON - The Pentagon will create two new military zones along the border with Mexico, U.S. officials said on Wednesday, a move that allows troops to temporarily detain migrants or trespassers. President Donald Trump's administration has hailed its actions along the border, including the deployment of active duty troops, as the reason for a sharp decline in crossings by undocumented migrants. Trump made voters' concerns about immigration a cornerstone of his 2024 re-election bid. The Pentagon has already created two military zones, but only four people have been temporarily detained on them, a U.S. official said. A new "National Defense Area" will be created covering about 250 miles (402 km) of the Rio Grande river in Texas and administered as a part of Joint Base San Antonio, according to the Air Force. The U.S. officials said the other military zone would be administered as a part of Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma, Arizona. The zones are intended to allow the Trump administration to use troops to detain migrants without invoking the 1807 Insurrection Act that empowers a president to deploy the U.S. military to suppress events such as civil disorder. As legal deterrents to border crossers, the zones have had mixed results. Federal magistrate judges in New Mexico and Texas dismissed trespassing charges against dozens of migrants caught in the areas on grounds they did not know they were in a restricted military zone. However, some 120 migrants pleaded guilty to trespassing in the first Texas zone in May and federal prosecutors obtained their first two trespassing convictions for the New Mexico zone on June 18, according to U.S. Attorneys' Offices in the two states. Around 11,900 troops are currently on the border. Illegal border crossings fell to a record low in March after the Biden administration shut down asylum claims in 2024 and Mexico tightened immigration controls. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
3 days ago
- Politics
Maine governor comes face to face with Canadian travel fears
Maine's governor was confronted on Tuesday with the reality of how fearful some New Brunswickers are about visiting the United States while U.S. President Donald Trump is in the White House. Janet Mills was in Fredericton for the second day of a tour through Atlantic Canada, hoping to reverse — or at least slow — a steep decline in the number of tourists crossing the border to visit Maine. She and Premier Susan Holt delivered a joint ode to cross-border connections to a Fredericton Chamber of Commerce audience largely concerned about the impact of tariffs on their businesses. But two questions from participants brought into sharp relief how immigration raids and the rolling back of trans rights is scaring some Canadians away from U.S. visits. A lot of members of the queer community — a lot of Canadians feel unsafe, Canadians who are 2SLGBTQI+ absolutely feel unsafe going there, said Vivian Myers-Jones, a member of the Saint John Pride board. It's a terrifying thing going down there right now. Myers-Jones plans to travel to Bangor this weekend for Pride events there as part of a partnership between organizers in the two cities, but said many other members of the community are afraid to go. Another member of the audience, business owner David Dennis, said his Venezuelan-born wife vetoed a planned trip to Maine this year despite his attempts to assure her that having Canadian citizenship would protect her at the border. Her fellow countrymen had been targeted for deportation and her comment was, 'I'm not going to the States this year,' he told the two political leaders. WATCH | 'It's a terrifying thing, going down there': Premier, governor hear concerns: Début du widget Widget. Passer le widget ? Fin du widget Widget. Retourner au début du widget ? Travel fears intrude on N.B.-Maine co-operation efforts Maine governor assures New Brunswickers they're safe in her state, but some say they're scared. Even before the question-and-answer session, Holt herself used the U.S. political situation to encourage New Brunswickers to travel within the province this summer — as she has been since the Trump administration first announced tariffs on Canadian exports. Lots of people don't feel safe in the U.S. right now and for good reason, and until that changes I think the climate for visitors will be difficult, she said. Mills said Maine has among the lowest crime rates in the U.S. and Canadians should feel secure hiking, skiing, swimming and shopping there. You can do that safely, she said. Maine rolls out the welcome mat for visiting Canadians (new window) She acknowledged as governor she has no control over how the U.S. Border Patrol or Immigration and Customs Enforcement operate in the state. But for the most part, they're busy in other places. They know that the relationships between Calais and St. Stephen, Madawaska and Edmundston, are sacred, and I don't think they want to damage those relationships either, she said. After the 90-minute session wrapped up, Mills approached Dennis while he was speaking to reporters and hugged him. Tell your wife we'll keep her safe, she said. The governor said she could understand Canadian angst when you hear one or two stories on a 4,000-mile border. It can be scary and people have a right to feel anxiety. But tens of thousands of people are crossing the border every day. She called New Brunswick's multiple border crossings with Maine the safest places in the world to cross an international border. Holt acknowledged that Mills opposes Trump's policies, even challenging them in court. But she said the governor's assurances that federal immigration crackdowns are happening far from Maine won't persuade everyone. Not knowing where they're going to be next makes it a really uncertain environment for anyone who feels they might be targeted [by] ICE, Holt said. Visits by New Brunswickers to Maine have been down by about one-third this year compared to last year. Holt is spending this week travelling around New Brunswick with Tourism Minister Isabelle Thériault to promote various destinations within the province. Jacques Poitras (new window) · CBC News
