Deadly storm slams New Jersey, hard-hit town cancels 4th of July celebration
WABC-TV
(PLAINFIELD, N.J.) — A huge line of severe weather passed through on Thursday night, killing at least three people in New Jersey and complicating travel for millions on the move for the Fourth of July weekend.
A deadly storm with winds topping 60 mph tore through central New Jersey, forcing one town to cancel its Fourth of July celebrations.
Thursday night’s severe thunderstorm killed at least three people: one in North Plainfield and two in Plainfield, about 30 miles west of New York, ABC New York station WABC reported.
The Plainfield fatalities were 79-year-old Rocco Sansone and 25-year-old Brian Ernesto Valladares, who died when a tree fell on their car, according to the city.
“Our hearts are heavy,” Mayor Adrian O. Mapp said in a statement. “We mourn with the families and stand ready to support them in every way possible.”
Plainfield is under a state of emergency, with the mayor saying the “devastating storm” left “deep scars.”
Homes and cars have been damaged and some houses are structurally compromised from fallen trees, city officials said. Over 80 trees were knocked down, including many that are blocking roads or are entangled with power lines, officials said.
“In light of this tragedy, we cannot, in good conscience, proceed with our Fourth of July parade, concert, or fireworks,” the mayor said in a statement overnight. “This is not a time for celebration. It is a time to regroup and focus all our energy on recovery.”
“There will be a time to celebrate again, to raise our flags and enjoy the joys of community,” the mayor said. “But right now, we must come together to clean up, to support one another, and to begin the work of rebuilding.”
(NEW YORK) — Outside a nondescript building in downtown Manhattan, Ambar was pleading to God and immigration authorities that her husband Jaen would not walk out the doors of the Elk Street facility in handcuffs.
“It’s the only thing I ask of God and them, to have mercy for his family. I don’t have anyone else. I’m alone with my daughter, I don’t want to be separated from him,” Ambar told ABC News with tears welling up as her daughter Aranza kept herself distracted on an iPad.
But her prayers were not answered. That afternoon, Jaen and two other men were brought outside by masked agents in plainclothes and quickly ushered into unmarked vehicles, with Ambar wailing and making a last plea. Aranza, 12, tried to push past the agents to prevent them from leading him toward the vehicles, tears streaming down her face.
ABC News observed the emotional moments as an uncontrollably distraught Ambar threw herself on the ground pleading for her husband to be released.
The masked individuals did not respond to multiple questions asked by ABC News regarding what agency they belonged to, why they were covering their faces, and which authority was being invoked to detain the men. But Jaen’s lawyer, Margaret Cargioli, says his detention follows a growing pattern of migrants being detained during check-ins with the Department of Homeland Security and being quickly deported under expedited removal.
DHS did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
In 2023, ABC News did a sit-down interview with the Colombian-Venezuelan family about their tearful reunion after being separated at the border by U.S. authorities in Texas. Jaen, Ambar and Aranza made the dangerous journey from Colombia hoping to seek asylum in the U.S.
“[It was] traumatic,” Jaen said during the interview. “It was a risky decision. We knew we had someone to take care of, our daughter. As a family, we felt we didn’t have another option.”
Once they reached the border the family said they were separated and were placed in different types of removal proceedings. Ambar and her daughter said they were eventually released and placed on a bus to Los Angeles, funded by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star.
Jaen was issued a removal order under the expedited removal process, but Cargioli and other attorneys with Immigrant Defenders Law Center were able to successfully challenge the separation and he was released on humanitarian parole for one year.
Cargioli says Jaen has petitioned for asylum, a renewal of parole and a stay of removal but all are pending.
Jaen was scheduled for a check-in on June 16 as part of the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP) — an alternative to the detention program run by ICE — but was unexpectedly told to come in on June 3 or 4, Ambar told ABC News.
That raised major red flags for his legal team, who has been monitoring increasing incidents of the Trump administration detaining migrants in the interior of the country and placing them on “expedited removal.” The process allows the government to remove migrants in a streamlined manner without requiring them, in some cases, to go before a judge.
Under the Biden administration, the process applied to migrants who had entered the U.S. within 14 days and within 100 miles of the border. Under the Trump administration, it has been expanded to apply to migrants anywhere in the interior who have arrived within two years.
Jaen and his family entered the United States on June 4, 2023, exactly two years before his latest detention, leading Cargioli to fear he’s being placed in expedited removal. Despite asking the ISAP officers where he was going to be detained, and if it was through expedited removal, the attorney says she has not received an answer.
Jaen spoke with Ambar on the phone after his detention and said he did not know where he was, but that he was being held at a facility close to where he was detained, Ambar said.
Ambar and Aranza have an asylum hearing scheduled for June 2028. Cargioli believes Jaen would be with his family if they had not been separated at the border.
“If he had not been separated from his family at that stage and put into expedited removal, he would have his case in immigration in New York, in immigration court with her, with both of them,” she told ABC News.
ISAP check-ins are carried out through a government contractor called BI Incorporated, according to DHS reports. Jaen has been regularly checking in at the Elk Street office since his initial detention, Ambar said.
Families with loved ones checking in stand outside the facility hoping they will not be detained. On Wednesday, ABC News saw one woman cry with joy when a relative and her baby walked out with no handcuffs in sight. Another woman was shocked to see her mom being quickly led into one of the vehicles waiting outside the building.
“Mom what happened, what is this,” the woman asked. The masked agents did not respond to her repeated questions about why her mom was being detained.
“I don’t understand,” the woman yelled. “She didn’t do anything. She has a work card.”
“Who do we speak to…what is going on,” she asked as the agents closed the car door and drove off with her mother.
(NEW YORK) — A federal judge on Friday said he has a strong suspicion that the Trump administration deported a 2-year old U.S. citizen to Honduras “with no meaningful process.”
The U.S. citizen, identified in the filings as “V.M.L” was initially detained with her undocumented mother and sister at a routine immigration check-in in New Orleans earlier this week. After the father of the 2-year old learned that his family was detained, his lawyer called immigration officials to inform them that V.M.L is a U.S. citizen and could not be deported, according to court documents.
“Around 7:30 p.m. the same day, V.M.L.’s father received a call from an ICE officer, who spoke to him for about a minute,” according to a court filing submitted by the father’s attorney. “The officer said that V.M.L.’s mother was there, and that they did not have much time to speak to each other and that they were going to deport his partner and daughters.”
According to the court filing, when the father reached out to an official for Immigration and Customs and Enforcement, he was told that he could try to pick up V.M.L but that he would also be taken into custody.
On Thursday, an attorney for a family friend, who had been given temporary provisional custody of the child, filed for a temporary restraining order, requesting the immediate release of the 2-year-old, saying she was suffering irreparable harm by being detained.
In response to that motion, lawyers with the Justice Department said it was in the best interest of the minor that she remain in legal custody of her mother and added that she was not at “risk of irreparable harm because she is a U.S. citizen.”
“V.M.L. is not prohibited from entering the United States,” the DOJ lawyers said in the court filing.
Before the court responded to the habeas petition and a motion for temporary restraining order, the 2-year old, along with her mother and sister, were deported to Honduras, according to court filings.
“That family filed a habeas corpus petition and motion for a temporary restraining order, which was never ruled on because of their rapid early-morning deportation,” the American Civil Liberties Union said in a statement.
The ACLU said that the 2-year old and two other U.S. citizen children in a separate case, were deported from the U.S. “under deeply troubling circumstances that raise serious due process concerns.”
In his April 25 order, U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty said he tried to reach the 2-year-old’s mother over the phone, to ascertain whether she, in fact, wanted her child deported with her, as the government had contended, but was told by government attorneys that wouldn’t be possible because the mother had just been released in Honduras.
Doughty scheduled a hearing in the case for May 16, saying he was taking the step in “the interest of dispelling our strong suspicion that the Government just deported a U.S. citizen with no meaningful process.”
(ORANGE COUNTY, CA) — A shooting occurred at Featherly Regional Park in Yorba Linda on Sunday afternoon, according to a post on X from the sheriff’s office in Orange County, California, where the wilderness park and Canyon RV campsite is located.
There was an altercation earlier in the day, after which a man returned to the park and tried to run over another man with his car, a police information officer said in a video posted to X on Sunday evening.
The driver then exited the vehicle and shot two people — “firing several rounds at them before turning the gun on himself,” the PIO said.
All three gunshot victims were transported to the hospital, the video explained, adding that the person who was hit by the car suffered minor injuries and was assessed by firefighter paramedics but was not hospitalized.
The victims’ conditions are unknown as of Sunday night.
The incident happened in front of multiple people, according to police.
It’s believed that all of the victims and the suspect knew each other, officials said, calling it an “isolated incident.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
