EXCLUSIVE: Breastfeeding mom of US citizen sues Kristi Noem after being grabbed by ICE

Kristi Noem in El Salvador
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks as prisoners look out from a cell during a tour of the Terrorist Confinement Center in Tecoluca, El Salvador. Alex Brandon/Pool via REUTERS

NOTE: This story has been updated. Due to a miscommunication, the original version attributed quotes to a lawyer, Daniel Perez, that were actually made by his paralegal, Jay Bar-Levy. Perez declined to comment.

A breastfeeding mother from Colombia living in Florida with a pending asylum application was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Sunday and faces a potential transfer to Texas, according to a filing in the U.S. District Court, Middle District of Florida, obtained by Raw Story.

Despite Yury Ussa Polania's claim of “lawful presence” in the U.S. and “irreparable harm” to her young child, a U.S. citizen to whom she provides primary care, immigration lawyers said the 43-year-old, who filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus following her arrest for a "non-violent misdemeanor" on May 5, faces an “uphill battle” to be released — a situation becoming more common under the Trump administration's hardline immigration policy, Hector Diaz, an immigration attorney in Miami, told Raw Story.

Jay Bar-Levy, a paralegal for Daniel Perez, Ussa Polania's lawyer in Gainesville, Fla., said she was being subjected to "diesel therapy" — a prison slang term for inmates being transported and transferred to different facilities. Bar-Levy also said Ussa Polania was being pressured to sign a voluntary deportation agreement and had been in four facilities since her arrest last Friday.

Perez declined to comment.

"When they want a defendant to plead guilty, what they do is they don't let them sleep, and they transfer them from place to place until the person gets tired," Bar-Levy told Raw Story.

"This is un-American to try to force or coerce someone to get tired and voluntarily sign the death penalty, technically … she faces a horrible, horrible fate if she goes back to wherever she came from."

Filing a petition for writ of habeas corpus means Ussa Polania alleges her detention “goes against the Constitution, and for that reason, [she] should be released immediately,” said Nicole Whitaker, founder and managing attorney at Whitaker Legal, an immigration law firm in Maryland.

Whitaker and Diaz reviewed Ussa Polania’s filing, shared by Raw Story. Neither is representing Ussa Polania.

“In my opinion, she's not being treated fairly, but she's being treated just like everybody else is being treated, which is they don't care that she just had a child,” said Diaz, managing partner at Your Immigration Attorney. "Even then, the likelihood of success is very small.”

Ussa Polania is currently more than 100 miles away from Seminole County Jail in Sanford, Fla., where she was first held. Her last known whereabouts is now Pinellas County Jail in Clearwater, Fla, according to a database from the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office and and the online detainee locator system from ICE.

In her petition, Ussa Polania said she faces “imminent transfer to Texas.”

Ussa Polania was booked at Seminole County Jail on May 2 for charges related to petty theft with an estimated value between $100 and $750, according to Frances Matos in the booking department at Seminole County Jail and an arrest report from the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office shared with Raw Story.

Ussa Polania “left with ICE” on May 4, Matos said.

Bar-Levy, the paralegal for Ussa Polania's lawyer, said there was a "misunderstanding at a Walmart for $34."

Stefany Garcia Izquierdo, 34, a family member of Ussa Polania, shared with Raw Story a receipt that Ussa Polania's husband paid on May 3 for her $500 bond, yet she wasn't released.

Ussa Polania is married to Garcia Izquierdo's cousin and also has an 11-year-old son. Garcia Izquierdo is godmother to Ussa Polania's baby daughter.

Garcia Izquierdo, a preschool teacher, is helping take care of the children with Ussa Polania's sister. That has been challenging, Garcia Izquierdo said, as the baby has been crying and experiencing diarrhea. The girl is being fed with breast milk Ussa Polania had refrigerated.

"For $34, look how hard she's been going. This is a nightmare," Garcia Izquierdo told Raw Story.

The Orange County Corrections Department told Raw Story Ussa Polania was being detained at Pinellas County Jail but did not confirm if she was ever held by the Orange County Corrections Department. The public information officer declined to provide comment from the warden, named as a respondent in Ussa Polania's petition.

The Pinellas County Sheriff's Office’s website shows Ussa Polania was booked on May 6 at 3:37 p.m. and remains in custody.

“I think it's wild that she was detained without having any more serious criminal convictions,” Whitaker said. “It's just a waste of resources, and it's clearly just this intent to inflate their enforcement numbers.”

In her petition, Ussa Polania challenges her “continued detention” and says she is both the mother of a U.S citizen child and holds “valid work authorization through 2029 pursuant to her pending application for asylum and protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT).”

The filing names as respondents Kristi Noem, Secretary of Homeland Security; Pam Bondi, U.S. Attorney General; Pete R. Flores, Acting Commissioner for U.S. Customs and Border Protection; ICE; the Orange County Sheriff’s Office and the Warden of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.

The White House, ICE, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Orange County Sheriff’s Office did not respond to requests for comment. According to a filing from Judge Carlos E. Mendoza, respondents have until May 27 to respond to the petition.

Megan Mann, chief deputy of operations for the Middle District of Florida, confirmed the case was "pending."

Raw Story attempted to contact Ussa Polania and her husband but did not receive a response.

Bar-Levy said: "Even though I voted for Trump, it doesn't mean that I'm gonna allow these kind of things to happen. This is not normal."

‘Carte blanche’

Whitaker and Diaz said they have worked with clients in similar situations.

Whitaker said she represented a Hondouran national in Baltimore, Md., who lives with his girlfriend and infant child. The man, who has no criminal record, “not even a traffic violation,” had approved special immigrant juvenile status and deferred action, meaning “protection from deportation based on his approved petition,” Whitaker said.

The man made a delivery on a military base. Based on his work permit identifying him as an immigrant, ICE was called, Whitaker said. Without detention facilities in Maryland, the man was transferred to two facilities in Arizona, requiring him to hire three lawyers.

“Procedurally, because there's so many people being detained, because there aren't enough people, there's not enough organization in the detention center,” said Whitaker, who said her client had yet to be processed when she went to the ICE holding facility in Baltimore, meaning a formal bond request wasn’t heard before the man was transferred to Arizona.

“They want to increase how effective their enforcement looks, but in doing so, they're just detaining anyone who is considered low-hanging fruit, including people that are lawfully here, that are eventually going to go before an immigration judge and be released on their own recognizance,” Whitaker said.

Diaz said he appears in Texas “a lot,” typically experiencing “zero tolerance for any arrests.”

He represented a 22-year-old Brazilian man who came to the U.S. with his mother at 10 years old. The family couldn’t afford to return to San Antonio for a hearing, and the man “didn't know he was supposed to go to court,” Diaz said.

Even though the man had “zero, nothing … on his record” and was “taking care of an autistic sister,” judges were hesitant to release him on $7,500 bond, Diaz said.

“Now ICE officers and everybody else thinks that they have carte blanche to do whatever they want, and there's no accountability to anybody because they feel that leadership is going to back them up for whatever they do, so they're just doing whatever they want.”

‘Treated like a number’

Ussa Polania will likely face an “uphill battle if she goes to Texas and goes in front of those judges,” Diaz said.

Especially because Donald Trump signed the hardline Laken Riley Act into law in January, Ussa Polania might face “mandatory detention” for the petty theft charge, Diaz said.

“I know how she's going to be treated. She's going to be treated like a number,” Diaz said. “Immigration obviously doesn't care about your personal circumstances, and now, there's basically zero tolerance for anything.”

Diaz anticipates an ICE attorney will recommend no bond for Ussa Polania and defense against deportation will be “super hard,” even for asylum as Colombians face abuse from militant groups, as detailed by Human Rights Watch and CNN.

“They're going to wear her out, and then, if she has the wherewithal to withstand all that, she can make it to an asylum individual merits hearing, which will probably be four to six months down the line,” Diaz said.

“She'll have to stay in custody. What does that do? It makes you want to give up. ‘I'd rather go home than be incarcerated for six months.’ That's probably what's going to happen if she does not get out on bond.”

Whitaker was more optimistic that Ussa Polania would get to stay in the U.S. for a hearing before an immigration judge, but acknowledged it takes “forever,” even for a non-detained individual — as much as 10 years.

“It’s cases like these that are clogging up the system in general,” Whitaker said. “It’s making it, ironically, hard for her to get this bond hearing that she needs so quickly to be released.”

ALSO READ: ‘Pain. Grief. Anger’: Families heartbroken as Trump backlash smashes adoption dreams

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LINCOLN — Outgoing Nebraska Secretary of State Bob Evnen said he’s baffled by a lawsuit that seeks to eliminate a provision in state law that allows U.S. citizens who’ve never lived in the country to vote in Nebraska elections.

Republican National Committee sues Nebraska over state election law

The Republican top election official, who lost his party’s primary in May, spoke with the Examiner about a lawsuit filed by the Republican National Committee over a Nebraska state election law.

The RNC — joined in the lawsuit by Lancaster voters Jack Riggins and Pamela Dingman — objects to part of state law that says “a person who is the age of an elector and a citizen of the United States residing outside the United States, who has never resided in the United States, who has not registered to vote in any other state of the United States, and who has a parent registered to vote within this state shall be eligible to register to vote and vote in one county in which either one of his or her parents is a registered voter.”

Evnen said the number of people who have used this provision of the law to vote in Nebraska elections is almost nonexistent.

“Why this would now be the focus of attention of the RNC is a little baffling to me,” he said

“The same day that this lawsuit was filed, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., enjoined the use of the SAVE database … You know, people have to make up their own minds about what they want to focus on,” Evnen said. “But I don’t understand why the RNC wouldn’t be focusing on that problem, versus this problem, which may be unconstitutional, but is just almost or virtually never used.”

Trump ‘trampled’ voter privacy by feeding info into Homeland Security system, judge says

Late last month, a federal judge ruled the Trump administration illegally overhauled a U.S. Department of Homeland Security computer program, the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system, in its hunt for noncitizen voters. Evnen has called the SAVE database “a very useful tool.” He defended Nebraska’s use of the SAVE database because “you can’t just use that tool to disenfranchise someone if there’s an indication that someone is not a citizen; then you take further steps to give them an opportunity to correct the record if it’s wrong.”

An investigation earlier this year by The Texas Tribune and ProPublica found that the federal database has made mistakes that have led to confusion in Texas and Missouri.

The lawsuit argues that part of the law violates the state constitution because it allows U.S. citizens who have never resided in the state or country to vote in Nebraska elections. The language targeted by the RNC is from a law passed in 2005, rather than the 2010 law cited in the lawsuit, according to reporting by the Omaha World-Herald, which was confirmed by the Nebraska Secretary of State’s Office. The 2005 law was passed during the George W. Bush administration, when Republicans controlled the U.S. House and U.S. Senate.

The sponsor of the 2005 law was then-state lawmaker Deb Fischer, who is now a U.S. senator. Nebraska U.S. Reps. Mike Flood and Adrian Smith were in the state legislature at the time. Flood proposed a tweak to the Fischer bill, as reported by the World-Herald.

Flood, in a statement to the World-Herald, said the original purpose of the 2005 law was to give “every opportunity” for “men and women serving our country overseas” to participate in the state elections. Flood said he supports the RNC lawsuit.

Evnen said he didn’t recall any lawmakers or elected officials at the time having concerns about the law’s constitutionality. Evnen said he has turned the lawsuit over to the Attorney General. If it’s determined that part of the election law is unconstitutional, Evnen said the state won’t register people under it.

Evnen lost his primary in May to Omaha businessman Scott Petersen, who said he was campaigning to address the “trust” issue people have over election systems.

Evnen has had to walk a political tightrope in defending his office’s election work while also acknowledging the election security concerns of some primary voters.

Petersen announced his support for the RNC lawsuit in a news release, saying, “The Nebraska Constitution is clear that voting is tied to residency, and voters deserve confidence that those participating in our elections have established a lawful connection to the state.”

The Democratic Secretary of State nominee, Sarah Slattery, told ABC affiliate KETV that Republicans are “targeting voters” because Republicans don’t have “candidates that voters can get excited about and get behind.”

The RNC has filed similar lawsuits in several other states, including Colorado. A court in Michigan rejected a similar GOP effort earlier this year, though a North Carolina judge sided with the RNC in its lawsuit there.

Nebraska Examiner is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Nebraska Examiner maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor for questions: info@nebraskaexaminer.com.

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Nobel Prize-winning economist turned political analyst Paul Krugman ran over the latest numbers on just how many people fell for President Donald Trump's self-enrichment scams — and came up with an astonishing figure.

This follows a New York Times report that details the losses to investors from Trump's cryptocurrency "meme coin" issued around his second inauguration.

That report estimated a loss of $3.8 billion — but more than that, Krugman noted, "even more surprising is the number of people who were in effect suckers here — almost a million. That’s really amazing."

Trump himself promoted the $TRUMP coin, noted the Times report, and while around 500,000 people did profit off the trades, it “reflects a small number of early buyers capturing enormous gains while the broad retail majority absorbed the losses,” said analytics firm Nansen — a classic hallmark of so-called "pump and dump" schemes, which are prosecuted as illegal when they occur in the stock market but are harder to police in the more lightly regulated crypto world.

"If you don’t know the background, Trump used to be highly critical of cryptocurrency, saying it was worthless and a scam, which was true," noted Krugman. However, right around the 2024 election, "crypto interests contributed a lot of money to Trump" as he realized they could make him rich, and all of his promises to deregulate crypto meant "the price of bitcoin doubled after the election; the valuation, the market cap of cryptocurrency in general went from a little over two trillion to more than four trillion."

That valuation has since crashed, putting Bitcoin around where it was originally at $2 trillion — which looks suspiciously like its own pump and dump, Krugman said, as Bitcoin is "a seventeen year old idea which has yet to find any legitimate use cases" other than to finance criminals and rogue states like North Korea.

It's one thing for investors to lose $3.8 billion, but $2 trillion is a completely separate universe, Krugman noted.

Pump and dump schemes go back centuries, or possibly millennia, Krugman said. This situation, however, "is on a scale we’ve never seen, and with the president of the United States in the center of it. Which I guess given everything else comes as no surprise."

A disturbing detail emerged from behind closed doors at the Third Circuit Court of Appeals: one of the court's newest judges appointed by Donald Trump was keeping a provocative political image on his phone.

Judge Emil Joseph Bove III, who transitioned from Trump's personal lawyer to a high-ranking DOJ appointment to a lifetime federal judgeship in September, had set his iPhone background to the photo of the bloodied Donald Trump raising his fist after the Butler, Pennsylvania, assassination attempt.

According to the New York Times, the photo, described by three people with direct knowledge of it, sparked visible discomfort among Bove's 13 colleagues on the 14-seat appeals court serving Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware.

The phone background is just the surface, the Times is reporting. Beyond that private memento lies questions about his behavior that have drawn formal scrutiny. In December, Bove attended one of Trump's campaign-style rallies—an appearance that triggered an ethics complaint now under review by the court's chief judge.

Retired federal judge Nancy Gertner didn't mince words about what Bove's conduct, including the photo, suggests.

"When he was nominated, my concern was that he was not just the president's lawyer, but a zealot," she told the Times. "He was doing and saying things that were inappropriate. And he's continuing to do so now."

Bove has so far recused himself from cases directly related to his prior work for Trump, a step that meets the bare minimum legal requirement. But ethics experts say his rally attendance raises broader questions about whether his private convictions can be reconciled with the judicial role.

"While it did not pose an ethics problem, it did raise the question of how Judge Bove was balancing his private views with his public role," said Jeremy Fogel, a retired federal judge who consults on judicial ethics, told the Times. "Particularly given his attendance at the Trump rally."

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