Thank you, really…every dollar counts.

Let’s keep going.

“Now is not a time to be neutral. Now is a time to be truthful.”

- …

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By Nick Valencia | April 20, 2026

ATLANTA, GA— There is a ve…

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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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FORT SMITH, ARKANSAS— When the blue lights flashed in his rearview mirror that October morning, Agustine Nze Edu didn’t think much of it. He was driving h…

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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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Our guest is Javier Cabral, editor of L.A. TACO. Under his leadership, the m…

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By Nick Valencia | August 27, 2025

ATLANTA — The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Preven…

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By Nick Valencia | August 27, 2025

ATLANTA— A federal magistrate judge questioned whether the…

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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

ATLANTA — On paper, the order …

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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 Nic…

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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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