#informers

They arrested two Democratic judges yesterday, not one. Everyone heard about the one in Milwaukee, hardly anyone about the judge in Las Cruces, New Mexico (former judge; he'd just stepped down under pressure). A lot of the reporting is sloppy/ taking the administration allegations as legit or even true, despite their history of lies, and these reports are full of loaded words like hid and harbored.

The charges are that Joel Cano and his wife hosted a young undocumented Venezuelan who the admin. alleges is a member of a gang, but they deported tons of Venezuelan men they alleged were members of that gang, many of whom seem not to have been, and no evidence has been offered, and terms like "harboring" use worst-case scenario language to describe what seems to have been someone--a refugee?-- who did some work around the house for them and then was allowed to stay in a guesthouse somewhere on the property.

The best reporting I've found is in the Albuquerque Journal: A complaint alleged that Cano had committed willful misconduct in office by allowing them to live on his property, and had permitted them access to firearms.

The search warrants resulted in a federal weapons charge against Cristhian Ortega-Lopez, 23, based on social media posts showing him holding and firing various weapons, including a video where Cano is present and holds a rifle that is passed to him.

The three men are all accused of being members of the transnational gang known as Tren de Aragua, an accusation that has been the basis for hundreds of men being rendered to an El Salvadoran prison by the Trump administration.

As in many of those cases, the men arrested at Cano’s home are accused of gang affiliation on the basis of their tattoos, apparel (including Chicago Cubs sportswear), emojis and alleged gang signs displayed in social media posts.

Additionally, a search of Ortega-Lopez’s phone uncovered text messages and a photograph of human corpses prosecutors say point to gang involvement.

Cano disputes evidence, describes raid

“I find these allegations to be highly sensationalized and without merit,” Cano wrote in his March 19 response.

Cano disputed references to the men as “known members” of the gang, arguing that they were fulfilling immigration procedures with federal agents, had undergone routine airport security procedures for travel, were frequently interviewed by Border Patrol officers at highway checkpoints and were pursuing authorization to work while their immigration cases were pending — all without ever being detained as gang members.

The first time Cano had heard of any association with Tren de Aragua, he wrote, was when “at least 45” agents, whom he described as wearing ski masks and sunglasses without badges or other visual identification, raided the two homes.

He denied that he had permitted the men to possess firearms, which would jeopardize their legal status in the U.S., admitting only to accompanying them on a December trip to a firing range.

Cano wrote that “the boys” had presented him and his wife, Nancy, with documentation about their pending immigration cases after initially meeting them in 2024, when they performed handyman work at their home. The Canos later allowed the trio to live in a detached studio apartment on their property and assisted them in complying with legal procedures and travel for court dates.

The response included details the men had presented about their journey to the U.S. over thousands of miles of terrain, including the notoriously dangerous Darién Gap at the Columbia-Panama border, where they said travelers were vulnerable to theft, rape and murder and claimed they had seen the bodies of murder victims out in the open.

Their relationship deepened as the guests participated in holidays, community events and volunteer work, becoming “a meaningful part of our extended family,” Cano wrote. “There is no way in the world that I would have allowed my grandkids to have any contact with the boys if I sensed danger.”

Cano argued the gang ties were speculations motivated by the Trump administration’s promise to execute mass deportations — a policy Cano criticized in blistering terms in his response.

https://www.abqjournal.com/news/article_68cdcdbd-d97b-4e4f-88e4-f6d0b5279daa.html

Here's the version from Newsweek: "The arrest followed a Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) probe launched in January, which uncovered that Ortega-Lopez, who entered the U.S. illegally from Mexico in December 2023, was living with other undocumented migrants and had access to firearms.... Investigators learned that he originally met Nancy Cano while performing handyman work. After being evicted from his apartment, he moved into a guesthouse on the property.

During a detention hearing on March 14, U.S. Magistrate Judge Damian L. Martinez questioned the federal prosecutor's familiarity with Judge Cano, remarking, "I don't think he would just let anybody live on his property," according to Fox News."

It quotes Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council in a post to X on Thursday: "Yet ANOTHER internal component of the federal government that acknowledges the reality; Tren de Aragua is not an arm of Venezuela and it's not 'invading' the country. Trump's lawless Alien Enemies Act declaration cannot stand." https://www.newsweek.com/who-joel-cano-judge-resigns-after-migrant-found-his-home-2062284