OC Immigration Attorney

Campaigning in Florida this month, GOP Presidential candidates continued to display a general lack of understanding of the state’s diversifying Latino population. While it’s well-documented that the Cuban-American population is currently a strong political force, the emerging story in Florida is that the state’s future voting population will become increasingly Latino, but less Cuban.

While it’s normal for political candidates to pander to today’s registered voters, they undermine the long-term electoral prospects of their party when they fail to recognize Florida’s changing demographics. Data from the U.S. Census Bureau reveal that increasing numbers of Florida’s children are non-Cuban Latinos. Overall, Latinos make up 26% of persons under age 18.

More striking, however—given Florida’s long association with Cuban immigration—is that the Cuban-origin portion of the Latino population is shrinking when you look at the youngest Floridians.

While Cubans are a majority of Florida Latinos over age 70, every Latino age group below 70 is becoming increasingly non-Cuban. Cubans are more than half (54%) of Florida Latinos aged 65 and over, but they are only 22% of Latino children in the state. Simply put, the Cuban population is getting older while a younger, non-Cuban Latino population continues to grow.

CBS removed a Times Square Video ad that called for a stop to Haiti deportations because it was too controversial.

Immediately after, The Center for Constitutional Rights released an email campaign this week calling on CBS Outdoor to explain its position. According to the group’s director of education and outreach, it was a huge letdown, and they just would like to know why.

Apparently, the ad contained a slogan in block letters stating that the cholera epidemic in Haiti is killing thousands, and then asking why the USA is still deporting people to Haiti.

Additionally, the ad also shows a deportee who had died with cholera in January nine days after being deported from the US because of his criminal record in Florida. CBS Outdoor did not return a request for comment.

When Homeland Security decided to resume deporting Haitians this year, immigrant advocates and human rights groups were outraged, stating conditions in Haitian police stations are unsafe and unsanitary.

The Department of Homeland Security insists deportations of convicted criminals to Haiti are necessary, because they can’t keep people in detention here indefinitely and don’t want to let them free.

In Sarasota, Florida, two residents were sentenced on June 17 following an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement ICE, the FBI and the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office MCSO.

Erisbel Artiles, 31, a Cuban national residing in Hialeah, Fla., was sentenced to 121 months in federal prison for hostage taking. And his mother, Lazara Z. Moreira-Penin, 54, also a Cuban national residing in Hialeah, was sentenced to one year in prison for conspiracy to transport illegal aliens.

After a Guatemalan citizen illegally present in the United States contacted MCSO deputies and reported that an alien smuggler was holding his 30-year-old brother for more unpaid smuggling fee, MCSO requested the assistance of ICE Sarasota office.

As a result of the cooperation and ability to work together that existed in Florida between state, local and federal law enforcement, they recovered the hostage victim without incident.

Eventually the victim was delivered at a gas station where ICE agents along with MCSO officers arrested Moreira-Penin. Artiles was arrested in Miami at a later date.

The investigation was conducted by ICE’s Office of Homeland Security Investigations in Sarasota, the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office, the Miami Violent Crimes Task Force and the Southwest Florida Violent Crimes Task Force consisting of the Bradenton Police Department, the Sarasota Police Department, and the Sarasota FBI Office. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Donald L. Hansen.