Talk about poetic justice! He defended Trump’s immigration crackdown. He was quite enthusiastic about it. It bit him, and it’s time to laugh! It’s the classic ‘what goes around comes around’ scenario. After the first thing seen today, this one is just pure, unadulterated joy! You’re appreciated, Raw Story:
A right-wing Brazilian influencer who defended President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown has been scooped up by federal agents. Júnior Pena recently declared his support for Trump and his immigration policies in a video directed to his hundreds of thousands of followers on social media, falsely claiming that the administration was rounding up only criminal migrants, reported The Guardian. “I [support] Donald Trump – I like the guy,” the TikTok and Instagram influencer said, adding that most immigrants need not be worried because federal officers were only arresting criminals. “They’re all crooks, the lot of them.”
Ha, does that include you, dude? Because apparently ICE thinks it does. Famous last words, there. Please insert any appropriate saying you choose here. Too busy laughing to think much right now. Yes, some of them *are* criminals, but by no means are all of them. Does that mean US citizens are criminals, too? Because ICE is grabbing anyone and everyone. *However*, I don’t know how many of you followed the story, but Liam and his Stitch hat and his dad, Adrian, are safely back in Minnesota! Their Congressman went down and drove them back home. Well done, sir!
Pena was reportedly picked up and detained Saturday and sent to the Delaney Hall detention facility in Newark, according to the Portuguese-language newspaper the Brazilian Times. His lawyer Andrew Lattarulo was reportedly trying to prevent Pena from being transferred to another state, the paper reported. The influencer, whose full name is Eustáquio da Silva Pena Júnior, has reportedly lived in the U.S. since 2009 and uses his social media networks to criticize Brazil’s leftwing president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and amplify supporters of the country’s recently jailed former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, who is a Trump ally.
Wow, Trump ally. No surprise there. It might have been a good idea for Pena to have kept his head down a little bit more. He doesn’t have many options now, and likely not much money to do anything. Someone might be nice enough to set up a GoFundMe for him. If it happens, it’s not something we would contribute to. (Ahahaha, when I went looking for a picture, I found that someone *has* set up a GoFundMe for him.) Now, a fund to *get* him deported? Oh, yes. Mean, but highly likely. Ha.
A record-high 2,785 Brazilians were deported in Trump’s first year back in office, compared to 1,640 in 2024, and many Brazilians have adopted “survival tactics,” such as not speaking Portuguese in public and trying to pass themselves off as “average Americans,” according to the Brazilian magazine Veja. “There is an atmosphere of fear on the streets where anyone who ‘looks foreign’ can be a target … irrespective of their [immigration] status,” the magazine reported.
Anyone who looks foreign, irrespective of whether they’re a citizen or not. And any female needs to worry twice as much. ICE dragged a disabled lady out of her car. And Mr Pretti was trying to help a lady who had been pushed to the ground by the thugs. We’ve been fortunate thus far and haven’t seen them in our town, but there’s a word that causes concern. Yet. Not yet.
Friends, I know everyone begs you for money. I promise that among all those asking for spare change, we are the smallest and the hardest-working. We’re a group of old, disabled people, except for one writer in his mid-50s. The rest of us are in our sixties and seventies, and this is a labor of love. All we’re asking for is the chance to keep telling the truth about Trump and help ensure democracy survives. If you can help, please do. Thank you. Ursula
“Yet…not yet,” indeed! I live near Minneapolis, closer to St. Paul. Our entire state is under seige. I hope you never have to go through this!
Oooo yikes! I’ve been following the news as close as possible about what’s going on in your state. It’s out of control. Right now I have *no* ideas about what could be done. DHS and Krispi Gnome may talk a good show, but they do NOTHING. That’s what kicks me in the gut. People have died. Neither CBP nor ICE has any guardrails. It feels like gangsters. I’m really hoping they don’t do anything here. and yes, Yet.