Tuesday, April 22, 2025
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A View From the Ground
News and information about politics, government, civic participation and engagement from URL Media's network of Black and Brown publishers.
Good evening. How much do you know about the main reason why Kilmar Abrego Garcia is being held in an El Salvador maximum security prison? In other news, he scope of the targeting of foreign-born students is now much larger than at first thought, Donald Trump has reneged on a settelment that granted money to people in Alabama’s Black Belt to build working waste management systems and movie audiences are checking out “Sinners,” the new horror flick from Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan.Plus, we’re bringing you the latest updates at url-media.com as events unfold. Have a question? Write to us at [email protected].
Credit: Office of Sen. Chris Van Hollen
The most watched news story of last week was Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) traveling to El Salvador to meet with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland day laborer who was abducted by ICE agents and illegally deported to his native El Salvador and imprisoned at the infamous Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, also known as CECOT. But his arrest and trafficking by the Trump administration are not the beginning of his story.It actually begins with a fired Maryland officer who was cited for corruption. Baltimore Beat, citing a report in The New Republic, reported that the ex-cop, Ivan Mendez, who had been a corporal with Prince George’s County Police Department had been placed on a “do not call” list because he was seen as unfit to testify in court. Mendez had faced criminal charges because he shared confidential information about a police investigation to a sex worker in 2018.In March 2019, Abrego stood in a Home Depot parking lot waiting to be picked up for work as day laborer. Police detained him along with three others. He was questioned and asked to provide information about gang members, but he could give them nothing because, according to the report, he knew nothing. Mendez, however named Abrego Garcia as a member of the MS-13 gang on a “Gang Field Interview Sheet,” based on him wearing a hoodie and Chicago Bulls cap. But he won “withholding of removal” status, meaning he was not to be deported. ICE did not appeal.However, that police document is what U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi released as proof enough of criminal activity and reason for his deportation. Despite the government admitting that he was mistakenly deported, Bondi has insisted Abrego Garcia is a violent criminal and both the U.S. government and El Salvador’s government have refused to comply with a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that Abrego Garcia should not have been removed.Mendez was suspended based on the allegations against him in April 2019. He later pleaded guilty to misconduct in office and in 2022 received a year of probation. USA Today reported that Mendez was terminated in December 2022. Abrego Garcia was pulled over on March 12, and told by ICE officials that his immigration “status had changed.” He has not seen his wife or child since.Van Hollen, after being denied access, was able to visit with Abrego Garcia last week and photos of the two talking were released. In a news conference on Friday, he said that Abrego Garcia was transferred to a different, unidentified facility. He said it was the first communication outside of the prisons that Abrego Garcia had since he was abducted. Details of his condition were unclear. The Trump administration has vowed to not allow him to return to the United States.Read more at Baltimore Beat. →
The Trump administration attack on foreign-born students is staggering in its cruelty and aggression. So far, at least 1,500 have had their visas revoked by the State Department. Others, including Mahmoud Khali and Rumeysa Öztürk, were taken by ICE agents and placed in custody, to await possible deportation, despite not having been charged with crimes.Documented, taking a look at a report by Inside Higher Ed, shows that although the government said they would target for revocation 300 students who it dubiously claimed were linked to campus antisemitism, the range of visa revoking is much broader.So using a spreadsheet to produce a map of where the revocations were taking place, reporters at IHE found students targeted at more than 180 universities and colleges. Schools in New York, Massachusetts, California, and Texas have had the most revocations since they have the larger student bodies. Although the schools have been involved in the process, the State Department has begun to directly notify the students they are in violation of their student visas.“Typically, that communication comes first from the school and then from the State Department,” IHE reporter Ashley Mowreader told Documented. “Then there’s a very broad, sweeping other category, where a student’s status could be changed for some unknown third reason, and that’s the rationale that the State Department is using right now to cancel a lot of the visas. “Click here for more at Documented. →
Seeing environmental justice as a civil rights issue, the Biden administration granted people in Alabama $14 million to install updated waste systems, eliminating disposal mechanisms that left unsanitary water on the property of families that live in the state’s Black Belt area.The settlement was a win for the Black community there. But Trump’s administration, seeking to reverse civil rights decrees wherever it can, has reversed the agreement, which blocked Alabama from punishing residents when they could not fix their sewage problems. The administration called the settlement “illegal DEI and environmental justice policy,” according to Capital B.
The Alabama Dept. of Public Health says it will continue to work with local partners to follow through on the settlement for as long as funding exists, but it is not clear what happens after that. About 80 percent of residents who live in the Black Belt area have no connection to municipal sewage lines, and depend on private waste management companies to dispose of the waste. With no funding, and dwindling philanthropic support, there is a very real risk of residents there living again with untreated sewage on their property, potentially creating extreme public health risks.“We have heard from people throughout rural America where their systems are failing,” said Catherine Coleman Flowers, founder of the Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice, which brought Alabama’s sewage problems to light. “The soil does not discriminate there. There’s no DEI in soil.”Read more in Capital B.→
The new film “Sinners” has rolled onto the big screen, treating audiences to another collaboration between director Ryan Coogler and actor Michael B. Jordan. The two have teamed up several times in films including “Fruitvale Station,” “Creed” and most famously, “Black Panther,” which featured the late Chadwick Boseman. But this new project adds to the number of macabre works that bring social commentary into the horror genre.
Following the path of works like Jordan Peele’s “Get Out,” and “Us,” as well as the now-defunct “Lovecraft Country,” this new film takes a traditional horror premise like vampires and connects them to the real-life horrors of racism and oppression in rural Mississippi in the 1920s. But it also channels the work of authors like Tananarive Due and Victor LaValle.
But the genre is a big seller for Black audiences. Data from the Motion Picture Association shows that Black people account for 23 percent of moviegoers. That means horror movies get a significant share of box office dollars. “Get Out” and “Us” earned $255 million and $256 million, respectively.“Sinners” is now playing in theaters. Rated R.Read more in URL-Media. →
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