New Hampshire
Student deported describes ICE officer’s intimidation
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A Massachusetts college student who was deported while trying to visit family for Thanksgiving said an immigration officer told her it wouldn’t matter if she spoke to a lawyer, she was going to be removed from the country anyway.
Any Lucia Lopez Belloza, a 19-year-old freshman at Babson College, was flown to Honduras on Nov. 22, two days after she was detained at Boston’s airport and one day after a judge ordered that she remain in the country.
In a court document filed Saturday, she described being crammed with 17 other women in a cell “which was so small that we did not even have enough space to sleep on the floor.”
Lopez Belloza, who is now staying with her grandparents, came to the U.S. in 2014 at age 8 and was ordered deported several years later. Though the government has argued that she missed multiple opportunities to appeal, Lopez Belloza said her previous attorney told her there was no removal order.
The government also argues that the judge who issued the Nov. 21 order preventing her removal lacked jurisdiction because by then, Lopez Belloza was already in Texas on her way out of the country. But lawyers for the student argue that Immigration and Customs Enforcement made it all but impossible to locate her.
Lopez Belloza says when she refused to sign a form consenting to deportation and asked to call her parents or a lawyer, a “tall, muscular, intimidating” ICE officer “said it didn’t matter if I spoke to a lawyer because I was going to be deported anyway.” She later was allowed to call her family from Massachusetts, but that was before she knew she would be flown to Texas and then Honduras.
In a separate filing, lawyers for Lopez Belloza said the government acted “in bad faith and with furtiveness” by failing to answer phone calls to the Boston-area ICE office or update its detainee locator database and by moving her without allowing her to notify her parents or counsel. They asked a judge to schedule a hearing and allow Lopez Belloza to return to the U.S. to testify.
The filings came a day after a group of seven retired judges submitted a letter to the court supporting Lopez Belloza’s request for a hearing on whether the government should be held in contempt for violating the order. They said allowing the government to willfully disobey orders makes a mockery of the Constitution.
West Virginia
Officer who killed Tamir Rice fired from ranger job
SLATYFORK, W.Va. (AP) — The former Cleveland officer who fatally shot 12-year-old Tamir Rice in 2014 was fired from his post as a ranger at a West Virginia resort community, the fourth known time in seven years that he left a small department following public backlash.
Timothy Loehmann was fired on Friday from his position at the Snowshoe Resort Community District. The district’s board announced Loehmann’s firing in a statement following their emergency meeting.
SRice, who was Black, was playing with a pellet gun outside a recreation center in Cleveland on Nov. 22, 2014, when he was shot and killed by Loehmann seconds after the officer and his partner arrived. The white
officers told investigators Loehmann had shouted three times at Rice to raise his hands.
The shooting sparked an outcry about police treatment of Black people and systemic racism, especially after a grand jury decided not to indict Loehmann or his partner.
Cleveland settled a lawsuit over Rice’s death for $6 million. The city fired Loehmann for having lied on his application to become a police officer.
Loehmann landed a part-time position with a police department in southeast Ohio in 2018. He withdrew his application days later after Rice’s mother and others criticized the hiring.
He was sworn in as the lone police officer in Tioga, Pennsylvania, in 2022, and also left amid backlash following his hiring.
Last year, he resigned from his position as a probationary officer in White Sulphur Springs City, West Virginia, and the police chief responsible for hiring him stepped down.
Student deported describes ICE officer’s intimidation
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A Massachusetts college student who was deported while trying to visit family for Thanksgiving said an immigration officer told her it wouldn’t matter if she spoke to a lawyer, she was going to be removed from the country anyway.
Any Lucia Lopez Belloza, a 19-year-old freshman at Babson College, was flown to Honduras on Nov. 22, two days after she was detained at Boston’s airport and one day after a judge ordered that she remain in the country.
In a court document filed Saturday, she described being crammed with 17 other women in a cell “which was so small that we did not even have enough space to sleep on the floor.”
Lopez Belloza, who is now staying with her grandparents, came to the U.S. in 2014 at age 8 and was ordered deported several years later. Though the government has argued that she missed multiple opportunities to appeal, Lopez Belloza said her previous attorney told her there was no removal order.
The government also argues that the judge who issued the Nov. 21 order preventing her removal lacked jurisdiction because by then, Lopez Belloza was already in Texas on her way out of the country. But lawyers for the student argue that Immigration and Customs Enforcement made it all but impossible to locate her.
Lopez Belloza says when she refused to sign a form consenting to deportation and asked to call her parents or a lawyer, a “tall, muscular, intimidating” ICE officer “said it didn’t matter if I spoke to a lawyer because I was going to be deported anyway.” She later was allowed to call her family from Massachusetts, but that was before she knew she would be flown to Texas and then Honduras.
In a separate filing, lawyers for Lopez Belloza said the government acted “in bad faith and with furtiveness” by failing to answer phone calls to the Boston-area ICE office or update its detainee locator database and by moving her without allowing her to notify her parents or counsel. They asked a judge to schedule a hearing and allow Lopez Belloza to return to the U.S. to testify.
The filings came a day after a group of seven retired judges submitted a letter to the court supporting Lopez Belloza’s request for a hearing on whether the government should be held in contempt for violating the order. They said allowing the government to willfully disobey orders makes a mockery of the Constitution.
West Virginia
Officer who killed Tamir Rice fired from ranger job
SLATYFORK, W.Va. (AP) — The former Cleveland officer who fatally shot 12-year-old Tamir Rice in 2014 was fired from his post as a ranger at a West Virginia resort community, the fourth known time in seven years that he left a small department following public backlash.
Timothy Loehmann was fired on Friday from his position at the Snowshoe Resort Community District. The district’s board announced Loehmann’s firing in a statement following their emergency meeting.
SRice, who was Black, was playing with a pellet gun outside a recreation center in Cleveland on Nov. 22, 2014, when he was shot and killed by Loehmann seconds after the officer and his partner arrived. The white
officers told investigators Loehmann had shouted three times at Rice to raise his hands.
The shooting sparked an outcry about police treatment of Black people and systemic racism, especially after a grand jury decided not to indict Loehmann or his partner.
Cleveland settled a lawsuit over Rice’s death for $6 million. The city fired Loehmann for having lied on his application to become a police officer.
Loehmann landed a part-time position with a police department in southeast Ohio in 2018. He withdrew his application days later after Rice’s mother and others criticized the hiring.
He was sworn in as the lone police officer in Tioga, Pennsylvania, in 2022, and also left amid backlash following his hiring.
Last year, he resigned from his position as a probationary officer in White Sulphur Springs City, West Virginia, and the police chief responsible for hiring him stepped down.
