Trump wants Liam Conejo Ramos gone, but Christopher Columbus to stay. And Bad Bunny gives us reasons to keep fighting
Trump wants to deport Liam, Christopher Columbus arrives at the White House, and Bad Bunny gave us the serotonin we need to keep fighting.
Good morning from Bad Bunny’s love hangover. We start the week collectively healed after Benito’s halftime show, but with our eyes on the ball.
Here are our headlines for this week.
Trump wants to deport Liam Conejo Ramos at all costs
After five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos became a symbol of the government’s cruelty, lawyers for the Trump administration have put all their efforts into deporting him.
Liam returned home to Minnesota early last week after being taken into custody with his father last month. Liam was being held in a detention center in Texas and was released after intervention by legal groups and even members of Congress.
Now, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said Friday that “it’s seeking a deportation order for the Ecuadorian boy,” The Guardian reported.
The family’s lawyer, Danielle Molliver, described the move as “extraordinary” and possibly “retaliatory.”
Liam and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, who both entered the U.S. legally as asylum seekers, were ordered released from detention on January 31. The government is seeking to end the family’s asylum claims, MPR News reported.
Trump to install a statue of Christopher Columbus near the White House
Lest anyone have any doubts that this administration is racist, President Donald Trump is taking steps toward installing near the White House a replica of a statue of famed explorer Christopher Columbus that had been tossed into Baltimore’s harbor during his first term amid protests against institutional racism, the Associated Press reported.
The decision comes after lobbying by John Pica, president of the Italian American Organizations United, who said his group owns the statue and “agreed to loan it to the federal government at or near the White House.”
“In this White House, Christopher Columbus is a hero,” said Trump spokesman David Ingle. “And he will continue to be honored as such by President Trump.”
What the president surely does not know—and if he does, it comes as no surprise—is that Isabella I of Castile had ordered the navigator to “treat the Indians very well and with affection.” Such was Columbus’s barbarity that he was accused of hiding riches and conspiring against the Spanish Crown, as well as of abuse and mismanagement.
Now that we think about it, it makes perfect sense that Trump would want to celebrate such a figure.
The ICE numbers are in, and we were right
A new internal document from the Department of Homeland Security showed that less than 14% of nearly 400,000 immigrants arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in President Trump’s first year had charges or convictions for violent criminal offenses.
The document, made public by CBS News, confirms what we have all been shouting about: the raids have no legal basis. It is a massive Jim Crow-style persecution of a racial minority.
According to CBS, statistics show ICE has dramatically increased arrests since Trump’s return to office. Nearly 60% of ICE arrestees over the past year had criminal charges or convictions, the document indicates. But within that population, the majority of criminal charges and convictions are not for violent crimes.
In other words, the government did not find those “murderers, rapists, and gangsters” that the president talked so much about. Apparently, they are all in the Epstein files, and none of them are ordinary immigrants in the United States.
And then Bad Bunny arrived
It’s not all bad news. In fact, the best news comes from our community. Last Sunday, Bad Bunny performed a collective healing on the most important stage in the United States.
In a 13-minute show, Benito took a symbolic journey through the identity of Latinos in the United States, celebrated the community’s achievements, and gave a master class in geography.
But perhaps most importantly, he gave a serotonin boost to all of us who desperately needed good news to keep fighting.
