By Nick Valencia | April 20, 2026

ATLANTA, GA— There is a version of 2026 that Democrats appear to have already written in their heads. It is tidy, satisfying, and from what I’ve seen traveling this country for the last eleven months, wrong.

In their version, the backlash to President Donald Trump produces a Blue Wave in the midterms. The win becomes the proof of concept for a durable realignment, particularly with Latino voters, who broke hard for Trump in 2024. In this telling, 2026 is when they “come home.” They will. Just not for the reasons Democrats think.

For Democrats, November is when they win and things go Left. The Sun Belt softens, the party consolidates its gains, and Capital D Democrats are back, baby — just in time to ride a near-perfect midterm performance into 2028 with momentum and a mandate.

Parts of this are true. The wave is coming. But it won’t be about ideology. The swing votes will be less about immigration and more about Epstein and the economy. The biggest vote-getters will be people who buck political norms, wear cowboy boots, and believe in Jesus Christ — but don’t use Him to justify an immigration policy that is unlawful at best and immoral at worst.

It will be about popularity over politics, where voters would rather give a household name a chance — someone familiar — than an established politician. Because for a lot of Americans, politicians really are all the same.

I’ve been in these communities where the change is happening before our eyes.

A “Let’s Go Brandon” flag was taken down by a Latino family in Delano, California. The man who put it up loved that flag — it loomed large over the block. But the broken promise from Trump to immediately release the Epstein files mattered more. When the administration started dragging its feet on their release in late summer 2025, he had seen enough. Down came the flag.

For others, the about-face was more of a slow burn. Like people who voted for him not twice but three times — Trump 2016, Trump 2020, Trump 2024. My friend Jacob in Harlingen was so inspired by Trump that he voted for the first time ever. Now he feels like it was all embellished or fabricated. What began with posts like “That’s my President” turned into something harder.

“Fuck that fool.”

They have had enough.

All it took for Florida Republican Brandon Garrison was for Trump’s immigration enforcement to target his newlywed wife. Garrison now believes he made a terrible mistake voting for Trump — like many others who were told the administration would only go after “the worst of the worst.” Today, Garrison sits and waits for news on his wife Gabriela, hoping that a legal win on her behalf won’t be appealed by ICE and that she will finally be released. She has been held in ICE custody since October 2025.

As I am writing this, Garrison texted to tell me, “I know it’s late. But wanted you to know Gaby’s been released!”

After what they’ve been through, he tells me he won’t ever vote Republican again.

From the flagpole to the “fuck that fool,” Democrats will clean up in 2026. But let me be clear before the confetti falls: the voters Democrats are about to win aren’t converts. They’re auditors.

The Map Looks Good. Look Closer.

I was on the phone recently with a congressional staffer in a heavily Latino, historically Republican district in California — a place that, when we spoke, had just elected its first Democratic mayor in forty years.

The staffer was excited. Understandably. The numbers tell a good story. Just not the whole story.

Here is what I’ve actually seen over the last eleven months on the ground: things are bad enough that Latino voters who pulled the lever for Trump in 2024 are willing to give a Democrat a chance.

Note the precision of that sentence. Willing to give a chance.

That is not the same as switching parties. That is not ideological conversion. That is a provisional transaction — and the terms are stricter than Democrats seem to understand.

These are not voters who have suddenly decided they are Democrats with a capital D. Many of them are still conservative. Latino communities are culturally conservative in ways that coastal Democratic politics continues to underestimate, misread, and condescend to. The Reagan-era amnesty reshuffled California’s Latino electorate a generation ago. But those voters’ children and grandchildren don’t navigate their politics through that history. They are so generationally woven into the fabric of this country that they don’t see themselves the way others see them. They are not immigrants or migrants in their own minds. They are Americans — making choices, not loyalty payments.

Whatever else you want to say about him, Trump understood that people are exhausted by the politician. The performance of representation without the texture of it. Which brings me to South Texas and Grammy-nominated Tejano singer Bobby Pulido — another man who has motivated people by convincing them he is not a politician. That, along with his music fame and household name, will help him win. And that win will have been secured in no small part by voters who went for Trump in 2024 and who will vote for Pulido in 2026.

Those votes will feel more forced than inspired.

Pulido’s opponent, Monica de la Cruz, is losing some of those same voters — not because she’s too conservative, but because they read her as a puppet.

They’re voting for Pulido in large part because he had a hit song in the 90s that echoed across dance halls and quinceañeras. Also, he’s handsome, doesn’t own health insurance because it’s “too expensive,” and most importantly feels like one of them.

That’s the tell. Ideology is almost secondary to the authenticity test. And Democrats, institutionally, are failing that test even as they prepare to benefit from it.

The Window Is Narrower Than the Votes Will Suggest

I have friends from Eagle Rock, Northeast LA, the 34th District. Some of them voted for Trump. Some of them regret it — viscerally, personally — because people they know, family members, have been caught up in Trump’s aggressive immigration raids.

The anger is real. And yes, some of those votes are coming back to Democratic candidates. But as Democrats prepare to ride this wave, the question isn’t whether they’ll take those votes. It’s whether they’ll take them for granted — again.

Democrats are going to win seats in November by being the alternative to something genuinely terrible. That is a legitimate electoral strategy. It is not a governing mandate and it is not a durable realignment. The voters showing up are doing so because they are angry, scared, and out of other options in the short term — not because the Democratic Party has persuaded them of anything.

The party has a window. It will be narrower than the vote totals suggest. And the voters in that window are not patient, not particularly partisan, and even before a single midterm ballot is cast are already watching to see if they’re being played.

The blue wave is real. But a wave doesn't care who it drowns. Votes in 2026 don’t mean loyalty in 2028.

By Nick Valencia | November 12 2025

ROSWELL, GEORGIA— When the pain comes, Ibrahim Diallo says it feels like his body is turning against him. He describes the sensation like the feeling you get when …

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LOS ANGELES — On September 16, newlyweds Tucker and Barbara May walked into the downtown Los Angeles federal building believing they were there for her green card…

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MIAMI — Archbishop Thomas Wenski has spent decades ministering to immigrants in South Florida, but even he sounds shaken by what’s happening inside the infamous detention site Alligator Alcatraz.

“There have always been deportations, and there always will be deportations,” he told Nick Valencia News in an exclusive interview. “But we’re concerned that the deportations happen with due process of law.”

Due process is precisely what he says is missing. The Collier County facility smack in the middle of the Everglades, is not federally run.

“Immigration is the purview of the federal government, not the state government,” Wenski said. “Alligator Alcatraz is run and managed by the state of Florida. And so we’re concerned that many people are falling in between the cracks because of the lack of coordination between the state and the federal government.”

A federal judge has already ordered the facility closed. Instead, the state appealed. While the legal fight drags on, more than 1,500 people remain locked inside, according to the archbishop. At one point, the facility had scaled down to about 150, according to two sources with knowledge of the headcount. Now, things have ramped back up.

Every Sunday, the Archdiocese sends a priest to celebrate Mass, hear confessions, and provide pastoral care. For Wenski, that ritual is not just about faith.

“It’s one way of reaffirming their dignity in a place that wants to dehumanize them,” he said.

The Archbishop worries most about people who have been here for decades — those whose lives, children, and even military service tie them irreversibly to the United States.

“Lots of Central Americans have had TPS since the hurricanes in Central America, 20 or 30 years ago,” he said. “These people have built lives here in this country. Had children — children that are growing up, children that are veterans of our armed services. And so after 15, 20, 25 years in this country, to be told that you don’t belong here and to go home? Well, there’s no home there. Home is here. And that has to be recognized by our policy makers.”

In his view, Trump has already proven his toughness. Now it’s time for him to prove his capacity to compromise.

“The President wants the best for the nation, the best for this country,” Wenski said. “That he is removing criminals from our midst, I think most people will applaud. That he has shut down a border that was out of control, I think most people would applaud that too. So I think at this point we should say, Mr. President, you have some great accomplishments there. Take a victory lap — and let’s make a deal about these people that are here already, that have been here for years. Provide some measure of justice for so many people that are living in fear of a knock on the door in the middle of the night.”

For Wenski, the policy argument is also a moral one: America cannot continue to pretend that the millions of immigrants who have made their homes here are disposable.

THE EVERGLADES FLORIDA— The detention machine grinds on at the Dave Collier Training and Transition Airport (TNT). Behind the fences of the place better known for it’s nickname, migrant detainee transfers are still underway at Alligator Alcatraz.

Alligator Alcatraz is a place where court acquittals don’t mean freedom. It’s a spider web of fear and loathing where taxpayer dollars fuel a system built to keep people locked in limbo.

Pennsylvania schoolteacher “Angela” knows this system all too well. Since August 13, she has tracked her undocumented husband through 14 detention centers across multiple states and territories.

“Even though we’re married and he’s been a resident of Pennsylvania for almost 30 years, he’s never had a pathway,” Angela said.

A 1996 law stripped pathways to status and made re-entry a federal felony, giving people like Angela’s husband no real chance.

So, after nearly 30 years in Pennsylvania, 23 years of marriage, and steady work—Angela’s husband remained vulnerable all because of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA).

She remembers the moment that should have been their reprieve: a federal jury declared him not guilty of illegal re-entry.

Instead of walking free, an ICE official told him that he needed to turn himself in.

“Immediately after that trial, ICE wrapped him up again. And since then, he has been detained by ICE with no hearings, no meetings, no credible fear meetings, certainly no bond.”

These last four weeks since he was taken into custody has taken a toll. On everyone involved.

“He’s very scared, he’s probably worried about what’s happening to his family, and he’s using every ounce of his strength to not become a casualty…" family friend Mike Hoffman said.

The U.S marine and combat war veteran has been helping navigate his friends red-tape.

"The government has given us no choice at this moment but to speak for him. And I have no doubt in my mind that he wants to be an advocate for all the others that aren’t as fortunate as him.”

A Shell Game With Lives

Mike Hoffman says the only reason Angela's husband hasn’t been lost entirely is because of her relentlessness.

“Only through the due diligence of his wife. Truly through detective work, she’s been able to find him.”

Angela’s husband has an army of support, for which he is grateful. But for others like him, the battle through the complex system can be lonely.

South Florida based immigration attorney Evelyn Alonzo has seen clients arrested for little more than lacking a driver’s license end up in Alligator Alcatraz.

“They’re not the most dangerous, as the government stated… These individuals got randomly moved to other states. So talk about the right to counsel, the right for you to talk to your client. They just get moved randomly. So then you have to randomly find them.”

It is, Alonzo said, a shell game.

Families spend weeks chasing paper trails as detainees disappear from one jurisdiction to another. Sometimes, those who want to leave can’t. Judges refuse to hear bond cases because the government hasn’t “started” them. Deportations stall without explanation. And even those willing to self-deport are stuck waiting for their turn, lingering in detention.

Angela calls the ordeal not only cruel, but wasteful. Each transfer of her husband — Pennsylvania to St. Thomas, to Puerto Rico, to Florida and back again — comes with a price tag paid by taxpayers and collected by private contractors like Group Infrastructure.

“I don’t think the American people understand what their tax money is actually being used for,” she said.

Hoffman is more blunt:

“There’s such a big price tag on the detainees that people are making hand-over-fist money. And part of the problem here is we’re talking about people who have not been convicted of crimes.”

“What is the cost of holding somebody who has proven that they’re compliant, decades of no criminal history, not a flight risk, when they could be at home, still working, and making their court date?” Hoffman asked. “That cost is hundreds of millions of dollars.”

Business, Not Justice

For Angela, the most painful realization is that none of this feels personal. Her husband has been detained alongside Albanians, Canadians, Cubans, white men and women who share the same fate.

“Sometimes someone on the inside has the guts to help in the smallest of ways, but it’s enough. Overwhelmingly, people are still good.

"How can you not take this personally?" I asked, sincerely.

"Because… we’re just another family," Angela said.

That business dehumanizes everyone it touches.

“This is dehumanizing to the officials — and I’m not just talking about ICE, but for higher people — as it is for the detainees,” Angela said.

"I don’t feel targeted at all. Because in the end it’s really not personal. It’s about finding a reason to fill up the detention centers with as many people as possible in order to make money. And so I don’t — it’s business.”

In the Everglades, the fences of Alligator Alcatraz still stand, proof America's immigration system is not built to correct itself. It is built to endure, to expand, to swallow lives whole.

To hope that we either get tired, do nothing, or worse, forget.

By Nick Valencia | September 3, 2025

LILBURN, GEORGIA — At first, the Guevaras thought Mario would be home in days. The charges were minor: jaywalking, unlawful assembly, obstruction.

But since his arrest during a "No Kings Protest" on June 14, the journalist has now spent 81 days in immigration custody making him one of the longest detained journalists in U.S. history.

On an warm summer evening outside of Atlanta, his family invited to me to their home to speak about what it means to live without him, and why his absence has left not just his family, but an entire community adrift.

The Shell Game

When bond was initially granted again on July 1, the family rushed to pay.

"The local charges were dropped. He no longer had anything pending. But he still wasn’t free," his daughter Katherine Guevara, 27, told me while sitting at the family's dinner table.

That's when they found out he was put on an ICE hold.

"Neither online nor in person would they accept payment [for bond],” his daughter said about his ICE detainer.

In the 81 days since, Mario has been moved five times.

His daughter Katherine believes the chaos is deliberate.

“They do these things purposefully — to frustrate you, to break you, so you just sign the deportation papers. ICE officers have told my dad, ‘You’re going to be here a while. Just sign.’ But he tells them, ‘I’m a patient man.’”

Extorted Behind Bars

For a time, Mario was housed in an Atlanta federal facility. Because of overcrowding, some ICE detainees including Mario were placed in general population. There, men with misdemeanors were mixed with men convicted of violent crimes. That’s where a prison gang extorted him.

“Other detainees were gathering around him because they recognized him,” his daughter Katherine explained to us. “They saw him as famous. That’s what made him a target.”

The first sign of extortion was a photo texted to his daughter from an unknown number: Mario sitting on his bed in his cell.

“At first I thought it was AI,” she said. Then came the demand: “$60 per day.”

Mario called soon after. “If you don’t send the money, they’re going to hurt me.” Twice the family wired payments. Each time, the demands escalated.

Attorneys intervened and he was transferred the next day.

Now where he is at Folkston--five hours away from his family--he has been held mostly in isolation. But when his legal team filed a habeas petition citing those conditions, guards suddenly tried to move him back into general population.

“He refused,” his daughter said. “After what he went through, he wasn’t going back.”

Every day brings new anxieties — transfers, threats, silence. “It creates so much anxiety,” his daughter said. “Every day it’s something new. And then we’re expected to just keep going, live our lives, stick to our routines. It’s been horrible.”

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Anchored By Faith

Mario Guevara’s absence has reshaped Atlanta’s Latino community.

"People say ever since he was taken into custody, there are no more ICE raids,” his daughter told me. “But that’s not true. They’re just not being exposed. He was way more than a journalist. He was a figurehead.”

In the Guevara household, faith and outrage sit side by side with his children. They are angry, yes. But they are mostly resolute and growing up faster than they may want to. Mario’s eldest son, 21-year-old Oscar, has stepped into his father’s shoes. A brain surgery survivor, he now runs the family business while also carrying the emotional load.

“God has made me an emotionally intelligent and mature person,” he said. “I keep everything inside, bottled up, and that’s how I can help my family. But there are times where I just can’t take it anymore, and I cry — but away from them.”

The hardest part, he admitted, is watching his sister break down.

“She’s my best friend. And seeing her like that is hard, especially when it’s because of our dad. It’s tough. But as the oldest male after my dad, the family naturally looks to me for comfort. So I have to be strong.”

The Guevaras live each day in a cycle of dread and determination, knowing that tomorrow may bring yet another setback — or the miracle of release. And through it all, they insist: silencing one reporter will never silence the truth.

Nick Valencia News is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

By Nick Valencia | September 2, 2025

COLLIER COUNTY, …

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By Nick Valencia | September 1, 2025

LILBURN, GEORGIA — At first, the Guevaras thought Mario would be home in days. The charges were minor: jaywalking, unlawful assembly, obstruction.

But since his arrest during a "No Kings Protest" on June 14, the journalist has now spent 79 days in immigration custody making him one of the longest detained journalists in U.S. history.

On an warm summer evening outside of Atlanta, his family invited to me to their home to speak about what it means to live without him, and why his absence has left not just his family, but an entire community adrift.

The Shell Game

When bond was initially granted again on July 1, the family rushed to pay.

"The local charges were dropped. He no longer had anything pending. But he still wasn’t free," his daughter Katherine Guevara, 27, told me while sitting at the family's dinner table.

That's when they found out he was put on an ICE hold.

"Neither online nor in person would they accept payment [for bond],” his daughter said about his ICE detainer.

In the 79 days since, Mario has been moved five times.

His daughter Katherine believes the chaos is deliberate.

“They do these things purposefully — to frustrate you, to break you, so you just sign the deportation papers. ICE officers have told my dad, ‘You’re going to be here a while. Just sign.’ But he tells them, ‘I’m a patient man.’”

Extorted Behind Bars

For a time, Mario was housed in an Atlanta federal facility. Because of overcrowding, some ICE detainees including Mario were placed in general population. There, men with misdemeanors were mixed with men convicted of violent crimes. That’s where a prison gang extorted him.

“Other detainees were gathering around him because they recognized him,” his daughter Katherine explained to us. “They saw him as famous. That’s what made him a target.”

The first sign of extortion was a photo texted to his daughter from an unknown number: Mario sitting on his bed in his cell.

“At first I thought it was AI,” she said. Then came the demand: “$60 per day.”

Mario called soon after. “If you don’t send the money, they’re going to hurt me.” Twice the family wired payments. Each time, the demands escalated.

Attorneys intervened and he was transferred the next day.

Now where he is at Folkston--five hours away from his family--he has been held mostly in isolation. But when his legal team filed a habeas petition citing those conditions, guards suddenly tried to move him back into general population.

“He refused,” his daughter said. “After what he went through, he wasn’t going back.”

Every day brings new anxieties — transfers, threats, silence. “It creates so much anxiety,” his daughter said. “Every day it’s something new. And then we’re expected to just keep going, live our lives, stick to our routines. It’s been horrible.”

Share Nick Valencia News

Anchored By Faith

Mario Guevara’s absence has reshaped Atlanta’s Latino community.

"People say ever since he was taken into custody, there are no more ICE raids,” his daughter told me. “But that’s not true. They’re just not being exposed. He was way more than a journalist. He was a figurehead.”

In the Guevara household, faith and outrage sit side by side with his children. They are angry, yes. But they are mostly resolute and growing up faster than they may want to. Mario’s eldest son, 21-year-old Oscar, has stepped into his father’s shoes. A brain surgery survivor, he now runs the family business while also carrying the emotional load.

“God has made me an emotionally intelligent and mature person,” he said. “I keep everything inside, bottled up, and that’s how I can help my family. But there are times where I just can’t take it anymore, and I cry — but away from them.”

The hardest part, he admitted, is watching his sister break down.

“She’s my best friend. And seeing her like that is hard, especially when it’s because of our dad. It’s tough. But as the oldest male after my dad, the family naturally looks to me for comfort. So I have to be strong.”

The Guevaras live each day in a cycle of dread and determination, knowing that tomorrow may bring yet another setback — or the miracle of release. And through it all, they insist: silencing one reporter will never silence the truth.

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By Nick Valencia | August 25, 2025

SALT LAKE CITY — Brandon speaks English with the ease of someone who has lived in the United States for most of his life. Because he has. For 20 years, this country has been his home. Yet today, he is locked inside the Nevada Southern Detention Center—his life dismantled not by a violent crime or gang ties, but by an expired DACA permit and a non-violent DUI.

When I reached him by phone, Brandon’s voice was steady but weighted. He described how corrections officers mocked detainees with slurs like “wetbacks” and “beaners,” handing out cold burritos with smirks. Agents laughed when others were taken away, he said, sometimes taunting that they might never return.

“It’s a psychological game,” Brandon told me.

Before being taken into custody, Brandon says he, “kept America running” by working in an auto shop on the semis. He would fix up the broken big rigs that move the country’s goods. That life ended one morning when a blue Dodge cut him off near his home on his way to work.

Lights flashed, and eight ICE agents surrounded him. Ultimately, it was a female ICE agent who took him into custody. He remembers her vividly—her condescending demeanor, her words during their trip to processing telling him he was one of her favorite “captures,” her small talk.

Brandon wishes he didn’t remember her so well. Two weeks later, the same agent captured his father.

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A Mother on the Run

When we arrived in Utah to meet Brandon’s mother, her first worry was that we might be ICE agents ourselves.

Over the phone from the airport baggage claim, we assured her we had traveled to tell her side of the story. For that reason, we did not reach out to ICE for comment, avoiding any risk of drawing more attention to the family’s case.

We agreed to meet in an undisclosed park in Salt Lake City.

Under the Utah summer sun, she sat on a park bench, visibly exhausted, as she recounted the day ICE came for her son, and—just two weeks later—for her husband.

“They had high-caliber weapons pointed at him, like the military,” she said about Brandon’s apprehension.

The same agent who detained her son later led the raid against her husband. They even allegedly pointed their weapons at her 17-year-old son, a U.S. citizen, before threatening to come back and take her next.

She is convinced they will keep their word.

“100%—for the color of our skin, for our language, and for our place of origin,” she responded when asked whether she believes ICE is racially profiling Latinos.

When I asked if she feels safe here now, her answer was chilling.

“Now I feel like I’m hunted just as much here as in Mexico,” she said before adding, “God doesn’t destroy. God builds. God repairs families. God isn’t like them.”

Today, she remains in hiding—pressing on with what she can carry in a single suitcase, effectively a nomad, waiting with faith that her family will one day be whole again.

The Broader Moment

Brandon believes the tactics used by ICE today are inhumane.

“Under another president, they’d be going after violent criminals, not people like me,” he said from detention. “[ICE agents] feel empowered by this administration.”

For him, the stakes are existential. He is detained among men convicted of violent crimes, while his own record—one DUI—pales in comparison.

His father, once described by the family as “cheery,” has lost hope. Not only was he detained two weeks after Brandon, he too is now in the same Nevada detention facility.

Yet the two have never been allowed to see each other.

“Who knows if we ever will,” Brandon said.

By Nick Valencia | August 24, 2025

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ATLANTA— The gunman who opened fire on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conducted reconnaissance at the CDC’s main campus just days before the sho…

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By Nick Valencia | August 14, 2025

ATLANTA— For nearly two decades in The South, I have learned how to carry a kind of armor. Armor stitched in Italian wool. No matter how sub…

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ATLANTA— The facts are staggering enough: A man approached the guard shack outside the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Clifton Road campus in Atla…

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