USA03 September, 20263 min read
Trump Voter Naseer Paktyawal Regrets Vote After Brother Dies In ICE Custody
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Naseer Paktyawal says he will regret voting for Trump after brother died in ICE custody. Brother Mohammad Nazeer Paktyawal died in ICE custody.
ICE deaths and regret
A former supporter of President Donald Trump, Naseer Paktyawal, said he will forever regret his vote after his brother died in ICE custody, describing the loss of Mohammad Nazeer Paktyawal and the guilt he carries over voting for Trump.
Paktyawal, who came to the U.S. from Afghanistan, said his brother served in the U.S. Special Forces in 2005, while the Department of Homeland Security, the parent agency of ICE, claimed it had no record of his service, according to The Mirror.
He recounted an arrest outside a Dallas apartment in which he said, "two cars unmarked. Seven, eight people jump out of those cars," and he said agents grabbed his brother and put him in handcuffs in front of his family.
Afterward, Paktyawal said he got a phone call from an ICE facility telling him his brother had died and that his body was left in a hospital parking lot, adding, "That's the thing that I will never forget in my life,".
Paktyawal said, "My first vote was for this president, and I regret it, and I'm gonna regret it for the rest of my life," and he blamed his voting for his brother's death, according to The Mirror.
Ohio ankle monitors
In Ohio, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told reporters Sept. 4 during a visit to Warren County that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has made 380 arrests in Springfield and that the agency would "continue to push."
Mullin said ICE will continue using ankle monitors to track Haitians who came under the Temporary Protected Status program, and he told them, "Because you’re on probation," while urging them to return to Haiti on their own.
The Cincinnati Enquirer reported that the visit came days after 20-year-old Haitian immigrant Pierre Damas Bel died after being struck by a semi-truck, which friends and family say was a suicide due to the shame of being forced by ICE to wear an ankle monitor.
Mullin said Bel's apparent suicide won't spur Homeland Security to consider exceptions to the ankle monitors, and he said, "We did our job. What happened when he went home, he wasn't in our custody; we're not responsible for that."
The report also said many of the estimated 15,000 Haitians living in Springfield were there under temporary protected status after the Trump administration ended their temporary protected status in July.
DOJ blocks civil rights charge
In Washington, D.C., leaders at the Department of Justice quashed plans to bring civil rights charges against an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent accused of shooting a Venezuelan immigrant and then lying about it, after the federal prosecutor handling the case raised the "strongest possible" objections, according to Salon.
Salon said the agent, 52-year-old Christian Castro, allegedly shot Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis in the leg in Minneapolis this January during Operation Metro Surge, and that the incident was one of three shootings by immigration agents in the city, the other two of which were fatal.
Matthew Evans, the assistant U.S. attorney in Minnesota in charge of the case, told lawyers for Sosa-Celis and other victims to prepare for Castro to be charged "only with False Statements," according to an email reviewed by ProPublica.
Evans wrote in that email, "I objected in the strongest possible terms and fought it as hard as I could. It wasn’t enough," describing internal deliberations as DOJ leaders directed the charging approach.
Salon also reported that Castro was put on leave by the Department of Homeland Security and was facing multiple state felony charges in Minnesota, including assault with a dangerous weapon, while Texas Gov. Greg Abbott refused to cooperate with Minnesota's request to extradite him.