Tuesday, June 3, 2025
New to URL Media? Subscribe below to get our weekly newsletters.
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. ICE agents are showing up at federal courthouses in New York to detain migrants. The Texas teenager who allegedly stabbed another boy to death at a track meet is being charged as an adult. Also, a Washington State wife was shocked to learn her husband was deported to South Sudan.Plus, as always, we’re bringing you the latest updates at url-media.com as events unfold. Have a question? Write to us at [email protected].
Credit: ICE
The presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at Manhattan immigration courts is causing fear, panic and confusion, according to Documented. That’s because a Department of Homeland Security directive allowing courthouse arrests was put into effect last week.Witnesses say ICE agents were at the Varick Street and Federal Plaza Immigration Courts with lists and photos of migrants they wanted to detain. One person said that by noon Wednesday, at least six people were in custody, from the Varick Street location. Four arrests were reported at Federal Plaza, including a Queens pastor who tried to intervene in a detention. Another said that citizens who were monitoring what was happening were also being arrested.
According to Documented, ICE agents were also reported at immigration courts in Las Vegas, Miami, Phoenix, and Los Angeles. Courthouses had been looked at as sensitive areas, but the federal government apparently no longer sees them as such. The recent developments are only exacerbating fears of what could happen if a migrant goes to an immigration hearing.“The detentions started early [Wednesday] morning, and now they are not letting anyone in,” said a man identified only as “Arias” who was attending a hearing with an Educadorian family that was defending its asylum case. “It’s terrible what’s happening right now to the families and people presenting their cases before the judge.”
The 17-year-old Texas student accused in the stabbing death of another teen at a track meet in April was charged as an adult with first-degree murder through a state law that disproportionately impacts Black and Brown youths. Meanwhile the father of the victim is questioning why the teenager was allowed to graduate while he had to bury his son.
According to Capital B, prosecutors say Karmelo Anthony stabbed Austin Metcalf to death when the two boys got into a conflict over whether Anthony could sit under his high school’s tent. At the time it was raining. After the stabbing, Anthony admitted to the attack, but said it was in self-defense.
The case has caught national attention because of the races of the two teens. Anthony is Black and Metcalf is white. Austin Metcalf’s father, Jeff Metcalf, is questioning why the Frisco Independent School District is allowing the boy who allegedly killed his son to be awarded a diploma. Anthony reportedly had enough credits to graduate and the graduation was part of an “agreement.”Anthony is being prosecuted under Texas’ “concurrent jurisdiction” laws, which allow minors to be charged as adults without judicial oversight, Capital B says. The policy has affected a significant number of nonwhite youths accused of crimes like murder in a dozen states. Texas has one of the highest numbers of people younger than 25 serving life terms at 18,358. A grand jury is expected to decide whether to indict Anthony on the murder charge. If he is convicted, he could serve a mandatory life sentence.
A Washington State woman expected to reunite with her incarcerated husband, but that may not happen because the Trump administration deported him to South Sudan, a nation that is close to breaking out in civil war.
Ngoc Phan said she married her husband Tuan in 2009 while he was imprisoned in Washington and serving a 25-year sentence for murder and assault. He expected to be deported to Vietnam after his imprisonment. Arrangements were even made for his family to pick him up at an airport there.A judge has ruled that the ICE deportation of Tuan and seven others to South Sudan was in violation of a due process court order. The Department of Homeland Security has offered no explanation for sending the victims to South Sudan and has defended its actions.“South Sudan is experiencing such extreme violence that the US State Department has ordered diplomatic staff to leave the country,” Quyên Đinh, Executive Director of SEARAC, said in a statement to AsAm News. “Instead of embracing core American values around keeping families together and giving everyone a second chance, this administration is deporting people into a country on the brink of civil war.”Ngoc says she has not heard from her husband since he was taken to South Sudan. He is believed to be held at an American military base in Djibouti. “It’s just so outrageous that I’m scared,” she told KUOW. “But at the same time, it’s like, you don’t want to believe it, because, legally, how can they do that?”Read more at AsAm News.
The founder of the controversial security firm Blackwater is reportedly seeking mercenaries, including Haitian-American U.S. veterans, to suppress the violent gang activity that has plagued the Caribbean island nation for years, The Haitian Times reports.
The veterans are being recruited by Erik Prince, who founded the private military firm Blackwater, according to a report from The New York Times. He has signed a contract with Haiti’s government, which has been in transition since the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, to deal with roving bands of gangs that have taken control of areas around the capital city of Port-au-Prince.
According to the Times, Prince is looking to hire as many as 150 foreign military personnel, including U.S.-trained Haitian-Americans, to deploy helicopters, weapons and drones to stage assaults on gang-ridden areas.Rodenay Joseph is a U.S. Army veteran and security expert who was approached by Prince. Joseph said that he is against Blackwater’s intervention in the Haitian crisis because, he said, for Prince, it is nothing more than a “payday.”
“We should be very worried, because if he’s from the U.S. government, at least he can have the semblance of having to answer to Congress,” he told the NYT. “If it’s him, his contract, he doesn’t owe anybody an explanation.”
Decoding Donald Trump in the time of India-Pakistan conflict - India Currents
Who is the "Us" in "Not Like Us"? - Scalawag
Meet The 19th News Fellow Chanel Cain - URL Media
Check out our Currency of Impact dashboard, a new tool designed to revolutionize media buying conversations and put community impact on the foreground. Dive into our impact tracker and case studies highlighting demonstrated impact across the URL Media network. This project was co-produced with the Reynolds Journalism Institute. Visit it here.
