On his second day back in the Oval Office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to shut down the weaponization of the federal government — but the FBI is still targeting traditional Catholics, defying both the law and his directive.
Americans were outraged after a declassified FBI memo approved in October 2022 revealed that Richmond FBI had begun investigating some "radical-traditionalist" Catholics for their supposed ties to "the far-right white nationalist movement" as well as their opposition to abortion and "LGBTQ protections" in the law.
Why is the FBI 'snooping on my private chat of 43 Catholic men in South Louisiana?'
Then-Director Christopher Wray insisted in July 2023 that the memo was "a single product by a single field office," but the Committee on the Judiciary and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government later determined that FBI offices in Portland, Los Angeles, and Milwaukee also contributed to its development.
While the Trump administration has made significant strides in neutralizing the anti-Christian bias pervading federal agencies and the threat of the deep state against law-abiding Christian Americans, it seems that some rad-trad Catholics may still be under surveillance.
Blaze News spoke with Ross McKnight, one of the leaders of La Nouvelle Vendée, a Catholic group comprising mainly men that aims to "resist secularism," reclaim their "patrimony," and "restore Christendom in Louisiana by implementing the Doctrine of the Social Reign of Christ the King."
McKnight said that FBI Special Agent Beau Barker has made contact with him and another member in recent weeks, expressing concerns about some "online" comments.
McKnight told Blaze News that the group formed two years ago and that he and about 40 other men have a private Telegram chat in which they readily share their views. He made clear that the group holds to traditional Catholic teaching without apology.
"There's a necessity for Catholic social action towards the social kingdom of Christ," he said. And to that end, he and his fellow LNV members gather to pray the rosary, especially at events that promote sin, such as Pride parades.
McKnight also noted that the religion of Islam is a "heresy" and therefore is in conflict with the Catholic Church. "Muslims are historically what we would call a public enemy of the Catholic Church," he said.
On account of these views regarding Islam, the group strongly opposed the sale of a Catholic church in Buffalo, New York, to a Muslim group that intended to convert the sacred building into a mosque. McKnight shared a screenshot of part of their Telegram conversation about the prospective mosque. In it, McKnight states: "I look forward to the day wherein we [redacted], [redacted], and completely [redacted] that place, which may not be so far away."
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McKnight confirmed to Blaze News that he used the word "redacted" in brackets intentionally, though he did not clarify what he meant.
"We don't hate Muslims. We hate the heresy that is Islam. And so that's what we're fighting. We're not fighting Muslims as people," he explained.
"I don't have any intention of doing anything violent," he continued.
McKnight said he was just going about his business on August 22, 2025, when he received an unexpected phone call. The caller identified himself as Beau Barker, a special agent with the FBI.
"Hey, I'd like to talk to you about something you posted online," Barker said, McKnight recalled.
When McKnight demurred, Barker more or less indicated McKnight didn't have much of a choice. "I asked him for details. He wouldn't provide them. He just said, 'I want to talk to you,'" McKnight explained. "And I said, 'Well, is it voluntary?' He said, 'Yes, but ... basically, we'll come to you if you don't come to us.'"
'We do not conduct investigations based solely on First Amendment protected activity, including religious practices.'
Just a few days later, Barker rang McKnight again. When he didn't get an answer, he and a sheriff's deputy just showed up at McKnight's house, McKnight claimed.
Once again, McKnight pressed Barker for "details," wanting to know why an FBI officer was so interested in him, but to no avail. Barker never divulged any details and left the property without much more conversation.
McKnight soon hired a lawyer. Last week, he told his attorney to advise Barker that he would not be speaking with him.
Blaze News reached out to the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Office to confirm that a deputy accompanied Barker on this visit. A representative said only that she found no record associated with McKnight's name. The representative did not respond after Blaze News attempted to find out whether there were any records associated with McKnight's address.
Because Barker was so tight-lipped about the purpose of his contacts with McKnight, McKnight is left to speculate about what that purpose might be. Since Barker apparently mentioned concerns about something McKnight "posted online," he cannot even be sure the issue stems from the private Telegram group.
However, Barker also reportedly made contact with another member of the LNV, who indicated that the FBI "found something borderline threatening" in their messages.
The other member then confirmed that Barker was focused on McKnight's "[redacted]" statement. Without actually crossing into threatening territory, the FBI suggested to McKnight's friend that those words in reference to the mosque were "right on the line."
"Which indicates to me that it's not over the line," McKnight noted to Blaze News.
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To the best of his knowledge, McKnight and his friend are the only two members of La Nouvelle Vendée who have been contacted by federal agents.
McKnight does not know how the FBI became so familiar with his group and their conversations, whether Barker or another agent infiltrated the group chat or whether a group member with "a chip on their shoulder" aired grievances with the agency.
In response to a request for comment, FBI New Orleans told Blaze News: "The FBI's mission is to protect our communities from potential threats while simultaneously upholding the constitutional rights of all Americans. We focus on individuals who commit or intend to commit violence and activity that constitutes a federal crime or poses a threat to national security. We do not conduct investigations based solely on First Amendment protected activity, including religious practices."
The case also points to an apparently ongoing problem of FBI agents using weak pretenses to investigate faithful Catholics despite the change in leadership in the White House and on the Seventh Floor. Blaze News has reached out to Director Kash Patel for comment.
Why is the FBI "snooping on my private chat of 43 Catholic men in South Louisiana?" McKnight wondered.
"I'm just a nobody," he added.
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Amid his stunning success at reducing crime in Washington, D.C, President Donald Trump has floated the idea of sending federal law enforcement agents to yet another deep-blue city with a violent crime problem — instead of to Chicago.
On Wednesday, Trump indicated that he may first send federal agents down south to New Orleans on account of his strong relationship with Republican Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry.
'With a crime rate of 65 per 1,000 residents, New Orleans has one of the highest crime rates in America.'
"We’re making a determination now, do we go to Chicago, or do we go to a place like New Orleans, where we have a great governor, Jeff Landry, who wants us to come in and straighten out a very nice section of this country that’s become quite tough, quite bad?" Trump said from the Oval Office.
"So we’re going to be going to, maybe, Louisiana, and you have New Orleans, which has a crime problem. We’ll straighten that out in about two weeks. It will take us two weeks — easier than D.C."
RELATED: Mayor Johnson remains defiant on Trump's pending National Guard deployment amid violent weekend
- YouTube
Outlets initially balked at Trump's description of New Orleans as "quite tough" and "quite bad," citing statistics that suggest crime fell slightly in 2024 and significantly since 2022. However, other crime indices show that New Orleans does indeed have "a crime problem," as Trump said.
Neighborhood Scout said that "with a crime rate of 65 per 1,000 residents, New Orleans has one of the highest crime rates in America." The database rated New Orleans a 1 out of 100 where 100 is the safest possible. In a 2023 version of its top 100 most dangerous cities in America, Neighborhood Scout listed New Orleans at 33.
It also happens to be one of the most Democratic. According to World Population Review, New Orleans is among the top 20 most liberal cities in America, coming in at number 17.
Blaze News reached out to the offices of Gov. Landry and NOLA Mayor LaToya Cantrell (D) to see whether they would cooperate with any type of federal law enforcement help, but neither office responded.
Even with the ongoing violence in cities like New Orleans and strong resistance from Illinois Democrats like Gov. JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, Trump still seems determined to assist the crime-beleaguered residents of Chicago.
"We can straighten out Chicago. All they have to do is ask us to go into Chicago," he said.
"We don’t have the support of some of these politicians. But I’ll tell you who is supporting us, the people of Chicago, and I sort of want them to let it be known they have incompetent people."
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Louisiana residents are horrified by the discovery of the remains of a missing 12-year-old who was reportedly killed by alligators, but previous allegations against his mother make the case even more disturbing.
The remains of Bryan Vasquez were found by a volunteer of the United Cajun Navy with the aid of a thermal drone after a massive search that lasted for 12 days. The boy had been reported missing from his home in the Michoud neighborhood of New Orleans.
He was suffering from a fractured skull, a collapsed lung, retinal hemorrhages, fractured ankles, and fractured legs as well as a punctured lung.
Volunteer Jon Gusanders said in a press conference Thursday that he saw a "violent movement under the water's surface" that led him to find the body in a lagoon.
"I've never seen anything like that," he said, "and I hope to never see anything like that again."
He said that two alligators, one about 11 feet long and the other about 6 feet long, were holding the boy's body underwater before they were spooked by the drone.
Gusanders said that he used the drone to distract the alligators from recovery efforts since they kept returning to the boy's body and pushing it deeper into the lagoon.
A coroner found that the boy died from blunt force trauma and drowning in the alligator attack.
"We did everything we could to protect his body, to protect his honor, while the NOPD got their boat out to successfully recover him," he added.
The boy had been missing since Aug. 14 after he slipped out of a window. A neighbor's security camera appeared to capture him in him walking by in a diaper.
Police have obtained a search warrant in the case and confiscated the woman's cell phone in the investigation.
On Thursday, WDSU reported disturbing details in a conviction against Hilda Vasquez, the mother of the child. In 2013, the boy was rushed to the hospital when only 3 months old because he was vomiting blood and had stopped breathing.
His mother said that they were watching television when the boy began screaming as if "someone was squeezing him."
Doctors said the boy was the victim of child abuse after noting that he was suffering from a fractured skull, a collapsed lung, retinal hemorrhages, fractured ankles, and fractured legs as well as a punctured lung.
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The mother was sentenced to five years for child abuse but later received probation. She was eventually able to regain custody of the child.
While she described the boy as autistic and nonverbal, a report from the Department of Children and Family Services in 2021 said that his disability had been classified as "traumatic brain injury (non-accidental)."
A representative for the Vasquez family released a statement blaming domestic abuse for the previous conviction.
"All I can say is that as a community advocate for this community, I know for a fact in Hilda's past she was a victim of domestic violence," Cristiane Rosales-Fajardo said. "I know that in her past she has done everything to protect her children and that her child was living with her at the time he walked out of the house. All four of her children was living with her, so if the state and DCFS believe she is a danger, then that means they failed him again."
Fajardo has also opened a GoFundMe account to raise funds for the family.
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In three years, an American city will host a fierce competition among diverse teams. No, not the Olympics — the Democratic National Convention. Choosing a host city that can showcase the party’s strengths and mask its weaknesses will be an Olympian challenge.
Democrats face a fundamental problem: They have lost touch with the middle of the country. They own the coasts. But the so-called “flyover states” dominate the Electoral College, and those states are moving farther out of reach.
Democrats face a true dilemma. They desperately need a stage to prove they can govern, yet no obvious city offers safe ground.
In 2024, Democrats racked up California, New York, Massachusetts, and Washington’s 105 electoral votes by an average margin of 58.2%. But across the remaining 46 states plus Washington, D.C. — worth 433 electoral votes — they managed just 121.
In the “flyover 80%” of America, Democrats won barely a quarter of the vote. That weakness is not a passing problem. If they continue to bleed support outside their coastal strongholds, they will lock themselves out of the White House for good.
Almost a year after their crushing defeat, Democrats remain adrift. Instead of rethinking their message, they cling to the same losing issues: abolishing ICE, defunding the police, hiking taxes, and promoting transgender extremism. The voters have spoken — and rejected all of it.
The numbers are brutal. A recent Wall Street Journal poll put Democrats at a 35-year low, with 63% of Americans holding an unfavorable view of the party. Other surveys tell the same story.
The problem goes deeper than branding. Democrats need more than a new message. They need new issues, new leadership, and a new standard-bearer. Before any of that, though, they need a place to sort out the wreckage.
Republicans have already picked Houston for their 2028 convention. Decision made. For Democrats, as usual, nothing comes quickly — or easily. Even choosing a city exposes the chaos inside the party.
The last 10 Democratic conventions were held in Chicago (2024), Milwaukee (2020), Philadelphia (2016), Charlotte (2012), Denver (2008), Boston (2004), Los Angeles (2000), Chicago (1996), New York (1992), and Atlanta (1988). Big cities, yes — but half were in states that Democrats already win with ease. Those venues provide a friendly reception but do little to help Democrats reconnect with the rest of America.
If Democrats want to matter in 2028, they need to focus on battleground states: Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, or Nevada. Yet Milwaukee hosted just two conventions ago, and Philadelphia just three. Phoenix or Las Vegas might make sense, but neither city seems interested.
For now, the reported contenders are New Orleans, San Antonio, and Chicago.
New Orleans, colorful as always, may be too colorful: Mayor LaToya Cantrell has been indicted for using public funds to cover up a three-year affair with a cop. The city is also in Louisiana, which Democrats lost by 22 points.
San Antonio’s mayor, Gina Ortiz Jones, is also courting the convention. In a July 1 letter, Ortiz wrote: “Our city — bold, inclusive, and emblematic of the American future — would be a fitting and inspiring home for this historic event.”
Texas Democrats’ recent walkout over redistricting may endear San Antonio to the party’s national brethren, but Republicans have already claimed Houston. Also, Democrats lost Texas by 14 points.
Chicago wants another turn, even after hosting in 2024. But the city also has an enormous crime problem, a failing city government on the verge of complete collapse (wholly owned by Democrats, of course), and “America’s worst mayor.”
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Other reports suggest that Charlotte and Nashville are also interested. Charlotte, in a swing state, at least makes some sense. But Democrats were there in 2012. And both North Carolina and Tennessee sit in Democrats’ weakest region: the South, where they only carried Virginia in 2024 and lost Tennessee by nearly 30 points.
Democrats face a true dilemma. They desperately need a stage to prove they can govern, yet no obvious city offers safe ground. The last thing the party wants is to spotlight its own failures — crime, illegal immigration, defunded police, transgender sanctuaries, looming bankruptcies, punishing taxes, and mass flight from blue cities.
But nearly every Democratic stronghold tells that story.
The party doesn’t just need a reintroduction. It needs a reinvention. And if choosing a convention site proves this difficult, it signals how long — and how painful — that reinvention will be.
In drab, windowless rooms strung along a tight corridor, migrants who have flooded into the United States in recent years trickle before immigration judges each weekday morning.
These makeshift courtrooms are a far cry from the scorched border with Mexico and busy ports and airports through which these millions of immigrants have entered the United States, almost all illegally. But despite the differences in miles, atmosphere, and often language, the people appearing in U.S. immigration court (“alien respondents,” in legal terms) know what is afoot.
Migrants displayed a savvy understanding of immigration law that allows the adjudication of the proceedings to stretch for years.
In many cases, they are making their first appearance after being in the U.S. for years, and with careful pleadings and use of appeals, many know they can stay here for years to come. While Trump administration immigration tactics — such as arrests and deportations — dominate the headlines, the situation in court, where most of the final decisions will be made, is another thing the administration is trying to change.
“A surprising number of the aliens know how to work the system in an attempt to run out the clock on the Trump administration, by requesting serial continuances and filing frivolous or otherwise questionable appeals and by motions to reopen,” said Andrew Arthur, a former immigration judge now with the Center for Immigration Studies, which opposes wide-open immigration. “Some will be successful, but as the recent immigration court arrests indicate, the administration is attempting to limit those efforts.”
Recently, RealClearInvestigations observed days of immigration court proceedings to gain insight into the current state of a system with a backlog of more than 3.6 million people, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, which tracks immigration court figures through monthly Freedom of Information Act requests. New Orleans is but one thread in a sprawling web of often obscure courts, stretching from Massachusetts to Washington and from Saipan to Puerto Rico.
From a first appearance to an asylum hearing, the New Orleans courts seemed busy. This reflects the fact that historically, most immigrants to the U.S. follow their legal schedule, which begins with a “Notice to Appear” being issued to them either when they are apprehended at the border or subsequently after they have been paroled into the 48 contiguous states.
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“It’s never been the case that people aren’t showing up en masse,” said Kevin A. Gregg, an immigration attorney in California who hosts the weekly “Immigration Review” podcast. “The number of those who show up has always been very high, especially among people who have been in the U.S. a very long time.”
Paradoxically, however, the Trump administration’s recent vow to push arrests of illegal immigrants to 3,000 a day, along with some changes it has made to how it handles court cases, could serve to make attendance less regular, according to Gregg and others critical of Trump’s push. As attorneys and court officials told RealClearInvestigations, “Never underestimate the community,” meaning arrivals know the system from those who have gone through it before them. Now, if conventional wisdom says court appearances could lead to an earlier expulsion from the U.S., those here illegally will shy away.
“With immigration court specifically, ICE has been dismissing court proceedings in order to then immediately detain noncitizens and place them in expedited removal proceedings where they have far less rights and no eligibility for bond,” Gregg said. “Whether correct or not, many noncitizens will likely begin to view this as a trap and may not show up to immigration court out of fear. I don’t condone not showing up, of course, but I believe it’s a possible foreseeable consequence of what ICE is doing right now.”
Already, the Trump administration’s aggressive approach has sparked litigation and civil disturbances, from a Milwaukee judge allegedly helping “alien respondents” escape criminal proceedings to the recent riots in Los Angeles.
One late May morning, there were four New Orleans immigration courts operating, with a total of nearly 140 people on the docket, most of them first appearances. On this day, no-shows composed a very small percentage of those on the “master calendars,” as the morning dockets are known. In Judge Joseph La Rocca’s courtroom, for instance, only five of the more than 30 respondents listed on the master calendar did not appear; they were quickly handled “in absentia” and deemed removable.
That same day, in Judge Alberto A. De Puy’s courtroom, as many as six languages were used. The court has a Spanish translator present at all times, but for other languages, interpreters on the East Coast join by phone. In the hearings RealClearInvestigations witnessed, these involved Arabic, Hindi, Hassaniya, Turkish, and Konkani, reflecting a large percentage of Middle Eastern or Asian immigrants. Paperwork in the court’s small waiting room is available in seven languages, including Creole and Wolof, an African tongue.
De Puy’s master calendar hearing was a Zoom session with migrants at the federal detention center in Jena, Louisiana. There, men in dull gray scrubs sat in rows, while De Puy scrambled to find translators. This proceeding was further complicated by a protest outside the Jena facility, which has gained notoriety by holding the Columbia University graduate and Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil and other foreign nationals arrested by federal authorities since President Trump took office.
No one knows exactly how many people appear in U.S. immigration court each day. “That would be a great statistic, wouldn’t it?” said Susan Long, director of Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. But there are more than 700 U.S. immigration judges, whom the attorney general appoints to the administrative posts under the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review. If somehow the New Orleans morning sessions RealClearInvestigations followed could be extended daily to each judge’s courtroom, perhaps a dent could be made in the backlog, which includes more than 2 million pending asylum cases, according to TRAC.
That’s a fanciful assumption, of course, and at first glance, the looming numbers seem daunting to the Trump administration’s goal of sharply reducing or clearing the dockets. Still, some experts see promising signs as the figures for illegal crossings plummet.
If conventional wisdom says court appearances could lead to an earlier expulsion from the US, those here illegally will shy away.
“The situation is improving,” Arthur said. “It’s as if Trump patched a hole in the side of a boat, and now he’s bailing out the water the boat took in.”
For all the hue and cry about due process protections that have captivated activists and the federal bench over the past four months, the migrants appearing in New Orleans displayed a savvy understanding of immigration law that allows the adjudication of the proceedings to stretch for years.
The respondents sat quietly on wooden benches, in some cases accompanied by children. Most were neatly dressed and with their hair carefully braided or combed. The children appeared to be something of a prop, as each time they appeared, the judge asked that they attend school instead of court. Even on a first appearance, many of the respondents seemed to have a good idea of what would happen.
Most master calendar cases involved a “notice to appear,” and few of those were recent. For example, most of the people RCI observed in court the morning of May 22 had received their notice to appear a year and a half ago, in 2023, although a handful had received them as recently as last December.
Few of the immigrants had lawyers, which court observers called a wise move. If it was a first appearance, the judge asked if they wanted representation, noting that while the Sixth Amendment does not entitle them to an attorney, the court maintains a list of immigration attorneys who may offer their services at affordable rates or pro bono. Invariably, the person requested time to find a lawyer and thus received another court date — on these May days, that was set for seven months later in December.
For the others not requesting more time to find a lawyer, the judge rapidly read boilerplate language and determined that the person had entered the U.S. illegally and was subject to removal. At that point, the judge asked the respondents if they wanted to “designate a country for removal should removal become necessary.” Here, the respondents or their attorneys invariably declined.
This is a well-understood delay tactic that often fails. Despite the lack of response, the judge quickly set a country for removal and moved to do the same for a removal hearing. The judges perused their computer screens, presumably for scheduling purposes, and in some cases then scheduled that hearing for 2029.
In other words, almost all the “alien respondents” were given a lot more time. It was not unusual to see people having six years or more in the U.S. between the day of their arrival and a removal proceeding.
The legal process is different for those in detention, and attorneys and court officials told RCI that “there is a lot more detention” now under the Trump administration. Judge De Puy’s master calendar involved the detained men in Jena on one screen, with the occasional immigration lawyer cutting in from a separate office and a government lawyer from Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Office of the Principal Legal Advisor appearing on yet another video screen.
De Puy gave those making a first appearance months to try to obtain counsel, but he was less forgiving of those who were making a second appearance and asked for more time after failing to obtain representation. Several men — all those appearing were men — requested more time, but De Puy did not grant it in the cases RCI observed.
Some men requested “voluntary departure.” Arthur said this is a ploy that, in the past, allowed immigrants to melt into the interior, thereby delaying their cases, and the government lawyer seemed to have that in mind as he agreed to “voluntary departure” only “with safeguards,” which meant the men would remain in detention until their travel arrangements were made. Just how that might happen and when, given that the migrant is responsible for them, was unclear.
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There were other oddities. For example, De Puy twice asked a man from India, who entered the U.S. in December 2023, if he would like to “designate a country of removal.” After not answering the first time, the man then replied, “I can’t go back to India.”
“The court is going to designate India as the country of removal,” De Puy said immediately, at which point the man said he would “like to go back to India” and requested “voluntary departure.”
Of those migrants held at Jena who appeared that morning, only those seeking voluntary departure seemed destined to leave the U.S. soon.
The emphasis on detention is not the only major change the proceedings appeared to have under Trump, compared to when RealClearInvestigations first visited immigration court in 2022. Then, the government attorney would often offer what was dubbed “prosecutorial discretion.”
This amounted to a “get out of court free” pass. The judge told the person receiving prosecutorial discretion, “You are free to go and live your life, and the government has no interest in removing you from the country.”
It’s not clear how many illegal immigrants benefited from the Biden-era prosecutorial discretion, as the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to questions about it in 2022 or now. Those who received it were in addition to the more than 2.8 million the Biden administration simply paroled into the country immediately, a novel twist to immigration law subsequently ruled illegal by federal judges.
Under Trump, a similar step is taken with a different tone. In some instances, the Department of Homeland Security’s lawyer announced the government was “dropping charges” as the person is “no longer an enforcement priority.” Doing so does not change the fact that these people have previously been ruled “removable,” and by dropping the charges, the Department of Homeland Security can arrest and deport the illegal immigrant.
Of those migrants who appeared in court that morning, only those seeking voluntary departure seemed destined to leave the US soon.
That has led to arrests right outside immigration courts from Boston to New Orleans and elsewhere. While Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents can’t be outside every courtroom every day, this emphatic new move is precisely the one that could lead immigrants to eschew court as word spreads in the community about what is happening.
Judge La Rocca seemed concerned about this development, which, like some of the novel twists to immigration law under the Biden administration, has sparked federal litigation. At one point, when the government suddenly moved to drop the charges, La Rocca asked the immigrant if he wanted to accept that arrangement, which would leave him “without status” and still eligible for removal, or if he wished to continue to a removal proceeding. The overarching message was that the U.S. may move to deport the person.
La Rocca warned the government to be up front about what this might mean for the respondent, saying he “had heard of cases where he walked out the door and was arrested.”
Although the administration has endured criticism over the lack of due process for migrants deported on planes to El Salvador, judges in New Orleans unfailingly made clear to those in court the options available to them. In nearly every case, when the judge asked a person if he wanted to request asylum, the answer was “yes.”
That requires another future court date, usually years down the road. Asylum proceedings are not open to the public absent approval from the judge and the seeker, but RCI obtained such permission to witness two hearings.
In the first, a couple from Honduras who came to the United States in April 2022 had requested asylum on the grounds that they were afraid to return. The woman testified that her brother had been murdered and that when they tried to bring information about the case to Honduran police, in a town hours away from their hometown, a masked man brandished a gun at them. Suspicious cars then began to lurk around their home.
The government attorney asked why they could not move somewhere else in Honduras, or if they had tried to go anywhere other than the U.S. They had not, they testified. The husband said his sister is associated with drug gangs, and consequently, the couple did not feel safe anywhere in Honduras. The woman testified she never planned to immigrate, but for their family’s welfare, they fled here.
La Rocca considered the case privately for some 90 minutes, then denied the asylum application. He told the couple he believed their testimony, but that their case did not meet the asylum requirements, which specify credible evidence that the applicant fears discrimination at home because of race, sex, religion, membership in social groups, or fear of torture.
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But that does not end the couple’s immigration court odyssey. La Rocca asked if they wished to appeal his decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals. When they said they did, La Rocca told them they must file that appeal in the next 30 days, which would lead to yet another court appearance.
The second hearing RCI witnessed was before Judge Eric Marsteller. That case involved a 2022 application from an El Salvador woman and her two sons, who have each also filed separate asylum claims.
For unclear reasons, the woman’s attorneys withdrew in February, and she told Marsteller that she had been unable to find a replacement since then. Although she has family in the U.S. — a sister who has been granted asylum, a brother, and her mother — all of the supporting evidence for her claim of horrific abuse from her father came from a letter sent by a former partner in El Salvador.
Marsteller accepted the letter but told her it couldn’t be entered into the record because it was in Spanish. A man in court, identified as her stepfather, stated that the woman and her sons live with him in Louisiana, and he informed the judge that he would be responsible for them.
After more than an hour of the hearing, during which the sons departed the courtroom when the woman described her allegations of abuse, Marsteller asked the government for its position. The government attorney informed the court that the notice the woman had received was for a master calendar appearance, not an asylum hearing. Startled, Marsteller was forced to schedule another hearing. It will be in December 2026.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearInvestigations and made available via RealClearWire.
The way the citizens of New Orleans united to restore their home and regain their destiny should serve as an inspiration to us all.
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