united states
Haitians in Connecticut need more legal aid, advocates say
Haitians in Connecticut seeking out a social security card often need someone who can also speak Haitian Creole to navigate a complex immigration system.
“It can only be done quickly, with the help of somebody who is knowledgeable,” said Ann O’Brien, the director of sponsorships at Integrated Refugees and Immigrant Services.
Getting help is hard enough; finding someone who can actually communicate with them is even harder.
IRIS helps immigrants with wrap-around services including legal representation. But O’Brien said Haitians face unique challenges — everything from a lack of available staffers speaking Haitian Creole, to a relative lack of federal funds for legal aid compared to other nationalities.
Since 2021, many Haitians have arrived in the US following the assassination of the country’s president and a steady breakdown of public order that has been compounded with long-running economic inequality, which was partly shaped by US interference. Advocates are now looking to the federal government for help.
Rachel Kornfeld is the CEO of Jewish Family Services of Greenwich and she said her organization, which also helps migrants, has aided around 120 Haitians in the past year.
But they have to make do with their own funds to help them.
“We receive zero state or federal funding for our legal services, so every penny is coming from private resources that we raise as community nonprofits,” Kornfeld said.
More migrants are now coming to the US over the past few years and some have been resettled in Connecticut, either sponsored by families, or pleading for asylum at the US-Mexico border.
In early April, Kornfeld met with US Sen. Chris Murphy at a roundtable discussion with Haitian Americans in Stamford.
She wants the federal government to help, as they say the relative lack of aid for Haitians puts asylum seekers at a disadvantage, from
The United States Sanctions Nicaragua’s Attorney General for Supporting Ruthless Repression
The United States has imposed sanctions on Nicaragua’s Attorney General Wendy Carolina Morales Urbina. In a statement, the Treasury Department called her a “key actor in the Nicaraguan regime’s unjust persecution of political prisoners and civil society within the country.”
Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson said, “The Attorney General, in concert with the Ortega-Murillo regime, has exploited her office to facilitate a coordinated campaign to suppress dissent by seizing property from government political opponents without a legal basis. ” The seizures include the properties of the 222 political prisoners who were released and flown to the United States in February 2023. The exiled Nicaraguans were also stripped of their citizenship. Morales Urbina helped formulate the strategy designating Nicaraguan opposition members as terrorists and blocking their financial resources under an anti-terrorism law. She was instrumental, the Treasury Department noted, for enabling the Ortega-Murillo regime not only to steal real property owned by political prisoners, but also by independent media outlets and international organizations.
In a separate statement, State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller observed that Morales Urbina was responsible for the closing of over 3500 civil society organizations, including over 250 evangelical groups. She also took part, he said, “in the Ortega-Murillo regime’s baseless attacks on religious institutions, which included false charges and unjust detention of religious leaders.”
The designation means that any property of Morales Urbino in the United States is blocked, and US persons are prohibited from business transactions with him.
Morales Urbina has been Attorney General in Nicaragua since 2019. In 2018 there were mass protests against the Ortega-Murillo government that were brutally repressed by the authorities. Since then, as a February 2024 report by UN human rights experts attests, repression by the government has grown to include large swaths of society with a
Patriot Defender legal help touts free speech, gets labeled ‘alarmist’
A Florida-based legal service created last year to help people claiming they were being “canceled” may need its own assistance as it says it was shunned by a social-media giant and a nationally recognized distributor of corporate press releases.
The for-profit business, Patriot Defender, was launched in the fall by conservative political commentator James “Buck” Sexton, Florida security expert and businessman Ross Thompson and two other partners.
Their idea, Thompson said, was to create a “free speech insurance fund” where people pay a membership fee to then access lawyers and money if their livelihood or reputation is ever “threatened” because of a statement they have uttered, posted or written.
“The first line of defense should always be our First Amendment. But who comes to the rescue when you stand up and say, ‘Hey, I believe this’ or ‘I want to do this’?” Thompson said. “We will step in and pay for your legal defense. We step in and pay legal fees, arrange the lawyers.”
The monthly fee is $10 a month, and Thompson said the network already counts more than 2,500 attorneys across the United States. The company’s financial exposure per case is capped at a maximum of $250,000. Since launching last fall, Thompson said the service is logging an average of 1,500 new clients a month.
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Patriot Defender says it was called ‘alarmist’ and ‘fear-mongering’
But Thompson said the Patriot Defender has itself been stiff-armed.
When the company submitted a bid to have its own page on Facebook, Thompson said the social-media platform rejected it. Thompson also said PR Newswire, based in Chicago, “canceled” their request to circulate the company’s news release.
Thompson shared an email he
Immigration attorney explains suspect’s path from Venezuela to Georgia
Answers are surfacing about how Jose Ibarra26, managed to get into the United States, get arrested in New York, and make it to Georgia where police accused him of murdering Laken Riley.
Riley, 22, was attacked while she was running on the University of Georgia’s intramural fields Thursday, according to the UGA Police Department.
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Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued the following statement on Sunday that said, “US Customs and Border Protection arrested Ibarra Sept. 8, 2022, after he unlawfully entered the United States near El Paso, Texas. He was paroled and released for further processing.”
After receiving that update, Channel 2′s Courtney Francisco spoke to immigration attorney Joshua McCall on WSB Tonight at 11pmwho’s worked hundreds of cases in Georgia.
“Paroled and released means immigration officials take stock,” said McCall. “They ask questions. They ask if they’re planning on applying for asylum, for example, and they make a judgment call on whether they should keep them or let them go. Often, they will run their fingerprints against an international crime database.”
McCall said, usually, agents ensure the immigrants have a stable address and will send them there.
“In fact, they usually won’t parole and release them unless they provide an address, and they often verify someone living at that address is ready to receive them,” said McCall.
He said once there, the immigrant is expected to follow up to obtain proper documentation through the court system.
Instead, ICE said Ibarra ended up getting arrested in New York a year later.
Officers said he was driving in an uninsured, unregistered car with a 5-year-old and was charged with acting in a manner to injure a child.
ICE said in a statement, “He was released by the NYPD before
US attorney leading Hunter Biden probe breaks silence on claims investigation was ‘influenced by politics’
The US attorney in charge of the Hunter Biden investigation broke his silence Friday following explosive whistleblower allegations that his probe was “influenced by politics” and that he was “hamstrung” when making prosecutorial decisions, while denying Congress the records it requested for its oversight efforts .
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan last month requested US Attorney for the District of Delaware David Weiss turned over materials related to those allegations.
Weiss responded in a letter Friday evening, saying he is “not at liberty to provide the materials you seek.”
HOUSE GOP DEMAND TRANSCRIBED INTERVIEWS FROM HUNTER BIDEN PROSECUTOR, DOJ, IRS, SECRET SERVICE OFFICIALS
David Weiss, the US Attorney for the District of Delaware (Department of Justice)
“The whistleblowers’ allegations relate to a criminal investigation that is now being prosecuted in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware,” wrote Weiss, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump. “At this juncture, I am required to protect confidential law enforcement information and deliberative communications related to the case.”
“Thus, I will not provide specific information related to the Hunter Biden investigation at this time,” Weiss wrote.
The Justice Department last month announced that the president’s son had entered a plea agreement that would likely keep him out of jail. Hunter Biden is set to plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of willful failure to pay federal income tax, and to one charge of possession of a firearm by a person who is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance.
BOBULINSKI OFFERED TO TESTIFY AT HUNTER BIDEN GRAND JURY, BUT ‘NEVER HEARD BACK’: SOURCE
Hunter is expected to make his first court appearance on July 26.
As for the allegations, Weiss said the Justice Department “did not retaliate” against the IRS whistleblowers for making protected disclosures
Pittsburgh man sworn in as 60th United States Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania
A Pittsburgh man was sworn in as the 60th United States Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania on Monday.
Eric G. Olshan, 42, was nominated for the position by President Joe Biden on March 21, 2023. He was confirmed on June 8.
“I have spent my entire career litigating on behalf of the United States, and I’m honored to continue that service in my new role,” said US Attorney Olshan in a press release. “I look forward to working with the dedicated attorneys and staff in our office, as well as our trusted partners in federal, state and local law enforcement, to pursue our shared goal of securing justice and protecting communities throughout the district.”
Olshan is currently one of the lead prosecutors in the ongoing Pittsburgh synagogue shooting trial.
Olshan served as the Chief of the Economic/Cyber/National Security Crimes Section after joining the US Attorney’s Office as an Assistant US Attorney in 2017.
Olshan has also served as Civil Rights Coordinator, Public Corruption Coordinator, Health Care Fraud Coordinator, Environmental Crime Coordinator and District Election Officer in his time with the district, the Department of Justice said.
Previously, Olshan served in the Public Integrity Section of the Criminal Division of the US Department of Justice for ten years.
Olshan began his duties immediately and will lead an office of 115 Assistant US Attorneys and support staff at offices located in Pittsburgh, Erie and Johnston, the Department of Justice said.
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Parents of teen injured in Waterbury hit-and-run coming to US
WATERBURY — The parents of 17-year-old Bryan Calle, who was critically injured in a Waterbury hit-and-run last week, are expected to arrive in the United States from Ecuador on Sunday to be by his side, their attorney said.
Calle has been on life support since he was struck while riding his scooter in the area of West Main Street and Highland Avenue. According to an arrest warrant, the Cadillac SUV that hit him was driven by the former egan-hit-and-run-18127697.php#photo-23888248″Zoning Commission Chair John Egan, who stopped briefly without offering help and then fled the scene.
Calle’s parents, Segundo Calle Rubio and Rasa Calle Reinoso, who are in Ecuador, have been frantically trying to get an emergency visa to see their son who is in “very critical” condition at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center in Hartford, said attorney Ioannis Kaloidis, who is representing the family.
The couple was granted emergency visas Thursday and provided passports Friday, Kaloidis said. They were arriving in the United States on Sunday morning and expecting to go directly to the hospital to see their son and to make some medical decisions they couldn’t do over the phone, he said.
They are continuing to pray for their son, Kaloidis said. “They are extremely religious, and they have faith and are praying for a miracle,” he said.
Egan was charged with evading responsibility resulting in serious physical injury or death and failure to yield while turning left. He turned himself in at Waterbury police headquarters Wednesday evening, Lt. Ryan Bessette said in a statement issued Wednesday evening. Egan posted a $50,000 bond and is scheduled to be arranged in the Superior Court in Waterbury on June 12.
The investigation into the hit-and-run accident found that Egan had 16 drinks in the nine and a half hours before the
Consulate, nonprofits to provide legal aid to immigrants
Wage theft and run-ins with law enforcement are top concerns for families ‘living in the shadows’
EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – It’s seven simple yet powerful words: “You have the right to remain silent.”
But that’s a phrase that many migrants who come to Melissa Lopez’s office have never heard of before. If they had, they would not be seeking help to avoid deportation or crushing another major legal problem.
“State law requires that a person show identification. But the migrants we see don’t know they have the right not to talk to the police; they think they are required to disclose all of their information,” said Lopez, the executive director of El Paso’s Diocesan Migrant and Refugee Services. “Most of the time, Immigration doesn’t have the information they need to deport you, but if you talk and give them that information, then they will.”
Lopez and DMRS are partners with the Mexican Consulate in El Paso in a weeklong crusade to educate the immigrant community here about their legal rights in the United States. Such rights apply regardless of immigration status.
The second annual External Legal Advice Week begins Monday, June 5, online and in person at the consulate on 910 E. San Antonio St. The talks will address information about fighting deportation, retaining custody of a child, filing domestic violence complaints, and your rights as a victim or a defendant in a criminal case.
“The goal is to inform the Mexican community and workers in El Paso of their legal rights and provide referrals to legal services outside the consulate,” said Consul General Mauricio Ibarra Ponce de Leon. “This is the second (year) of the program and will take place in 50 American cities where we have
US Attorney General permits transfer of confiscated Russian assets to Ukraine for the first time
On Wednesday 10 May, US Attorney General Merrick Garland authorized the first transfer of confiscated Russian assets to Ukraine for reconstruction purposes.
Source: a statement by Garland quoted by Reutersreported by European Pravda
Details: The funds in question were confiscated by a US court from Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev, who was charged with evading sanctions. They can be transferred to Ukraine in accordance with a budget amendment adopted in December 2022.
quote: “While this represents the United States’ first transfer of forfeited Russian funds for the rebuilding of Ukraine, it will not be the last,” Garland said in the statement.
In February 2023, the District Judge of the Manhattan Federal Court authorized the prosecutor’s office to confiscate US$5.4 million belonging to Malofeyev.
Malofeyev, who owns Tsargrad TV, has been accused of financing separatism in Crimea and was sanctioned by the United States in 2014. Eight years later, US prosecutors accused him of evading sanctions.
At the end of 2022, prosecutors told the court that they had the right to confiscate the money in Malofeyev’s account at Sunflower Bank in Denver because he had attempted to transfer it to a business partner in defiance of US sanctions.
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US Attorney seeks 7-year sentence for exec in crypto shadow banking case
A long sentence is being sought by United States prosecutors for an executive in a crypto shadow banking case that has been dragged on for five years.
On April 18, US District Attorney Damian Williams filed a request in advance of the sentencing of Reginald Fowler, which is scheduled for April 20.
Fowler, the former minority owner of the Minnesota Vikings NFL team, was originally arrested in 2019 and charged with bank fraud, illegal money transfers and conspiracy connected to shadow banking practices over his alleged operation of an unlicensed money transmitting business.
On behalf of the government, Williams is requesting a sentence of at least seven years imprisonment. However, he fowler/”suggested a range of 15 to 20 years to reflect the seriousness of the offence.
Fowler established a firm called Global Trading Solutions (GTS) in 2018 under the umbrella of the Panama-based Crypto Capital Corp, an alleged crypto shadow bank.
He was accused of acting as an unlicensed money transmitter and deceiving financial institution. Through Crypto Capital, he allegedly provided shadow banking services to several crypto exchanges including Bitfinex, Binance, CEX.io and QuadrigaCX.
Between February and October 2018, GTS and Crypto Capital processed approximately $750 million in cryptocurrency transactions, providing unlicensed crypto firms with unlawful access to the US banking system, according to the filing.
Ivan Manuel Molina Lee, the head of Crypto Capital, was arrested in 2019 on suspicion of money laundering and being involved in a Columbian drug cartel.
Crypto Capital was a key player in the court case regarding Bitfinex’s failure to disclose the loss of $850 million in customer funds. That case was settled in February 2022, with the firms ordered to pay $18.5 million in civil penalties and