‘PROUD’ TO LOVE AMERICA
Beat susp: ‘Hothead’ Antifa crew started it!
Nearly half of the 680 illegal immigrants picked up in a massive raids at Mississippi poultry plants Wednesday have been released, authorities said.
The 303 people who were sprung were given notices to appear before immigration judges. Of those released people, 30 were freed on humanitarian grounds and another 270 were released after Homeland Security investigations, said Mississippi U.S. Attorney Mike Hurst.
Some of the hundreds of workers were juveniles, pregnant or sick, federal officials said.
The raid spanned seven meat processing plants and six Mississippi cities.
ICE called it the largest “single-state [worksite] enforcement action in history.”
Meanwhile, concerned citizens began to rally around the children left behind.
“The children are scared,” said Ronaldo Tomas, a worker at a plant that wasn’t raided. Tomas claimed he has a cousin with two children who was detained in one of the raids.
Morton, Miss., resident Gabriela Rosales said she knows “there’s a process and a law” for those living in the country illegally. “But the thing that they (ICE) did is devastating,” she said. “It was very devastating to see all those kids crying, having seen their parents for the last time.”
Before the large-scale raid, ICE officials said many would be released with a notice to appear in court because they had never before been through deportation proceedings.
While those people may have been released, they probably won’t be able to go back to work because the federal government alleges they are here illegally.
ICE officials said others would be released if they were pregnant, had small children at home, or had serious health problems. This Proud Boy insists he’s just a good ol’ boy.
A member of far-right organization Proud Boys on trial for attempted gang assault against members of the leftwing collaborative group Antifa insisted on the witness stand Thursday that he stands for patriotism, not hate — and it’s the other group that’s a threat.
Maxwell Hare, 27, testified in his own defense while standing up for the Proud Boys, widely considered a neofascist organization that promotes racism, sexism and violence.
“It’s just a group of bluecollar men that love America,” Hare said on direct examination by his attorney Ronald Hart.
He said he took an “oath” to join that said “I’m a Western chauvinist and I refuse to apologize for creating the modern world, which is simply Western, meaning America.”
The group is “extremely patriotic,” which is seen as “a positive thing,” Hare said.
Prosecutors say he and co-defendant John Kinsman beat the pulp out of Antifa protesters who followed the Proud Boys to a speaking event at the Metropolitan Republican Club on the Upper East Side on Oct. 12, 2018. They were among 10 members of their crew to get indicted in the incident.
Antifa showed up to protest the polarizing headline guest, former Proud Boy leader Gavin McInnes.
The street brawl between the groups, which took place about a block away from the club on E. 82nd St. near Lexington Ave., was captured on surveillance and cell phone video. None of the alleged Antifa victims are cooperating. Members told police who responded to the scene to leave them alone, rejecting offers of help.
Hare, who works as an electrician for Amtrak, insisted Antifa threatened his crew on social media and were known for their tendency to start fights. “We’ve never gone out and tried to instigate fights or instigate violence,” he said.
He said the Proud Boys kick bad actors out of the group when they get into fights, and that he was “afraid” of Antifa because of its reputation for violence.
“We don’t want to be around hotheads like that. That’s against the tenets of being a Proud Boy,” he said.
“They’re a violent, militant anarchist group,” he said of Antifa, which is short for “antifascist.” “They’re individuals that show up to events in black masks and black hoods to disrupt the event.”
He testified that any action he took against Antifa that night was in response to aggression. “I had to protect me and my friends … because they were attacking us,” Hare said.
On cross-examination, Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass confronted Hare with photos of himself at Proud Boys events reacting with glee as McInnes spewed inflammatory rhetoric.
Hare also identified himself holding an AR-15 rifle in a social media photo. He apparently owns the lethal weapon legally. In that image, he’s holding an Antifa flag with the logo crossed out.
“It’s just anti-Antifa,” he insisted, saying there was no larger meaning or threat behind it.