ICE Agents Mock Army Wife They Tried to Deport

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents mocked a U.S. Army wife who was returned to the United States after being put on a deportation flight to her native Brazil.

Maisa Lopes Eliaser was mid-flight Wednesday with several other immigrants when agents received a call about her. She told the Associated Press that an ICE agent then asked her if she wanted to continue to Brazil or return to the U.S. Eliaser’s husband, Army Staff Sgt. Alexis Jaramillo, told the AP that they didn’t know who made the call, “but someone made the phone call, and then she came back.”

Other detainees were led off of the plane in Brazil, but Eliaser was allowed to stay on board to return to Louisiana. Agents then told her that thanks to videos and news reports about her case, she was “famous.”

Jaramillo, an aviation operations specialist who has served in the Army for more than 10 years, was forced to take leave from his duties training soldiers to care for his five-year-old stepson after she was detained last month at an immigration appointment. The government previously told the AP that Eliaser had been issued a final order of removal by an immigration judge in April for overstaying a tourist visa.

Now Eliaser has an appointment Monday to reopen her case and green card application, and the couple is worried. Jaramillo, who is a U.S. citizen and married Eliaser in 2024, has been told there won’t be any more issues. But he and his wife “are really, really, really scared about it, but you know, we have to go.”

“I told the person who gave me the appointment, ‘Hey sir, don’t play with me, I’ve been through a lot,’” Jaramillo told the AP.

The Trump administration has disrespected the immigrant family members of U.S. military personnel, with ICE agents raiding a military base to arrest a newlywed soldier’s wife and staking out Marine Corps graduations to detain immigrants. While Democrats in Congress are investigating deportations of military personnel and their families, Eliaser was fortunate enough to be allowed to return to the U.S. Others have not been so lucky.

It’s been more than a month since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration linked Taylor Farms to the deadly cyclospora outbreak, and yet the agency is only just now sending investigators to visit the produce grower’s facilities.  

Investigators with the FDA finally arrived at Taylor Farms’s operation in Mexico to inspect facilities linked to the parasite that can cause explosive bowel movements, four U.S. officials told The Washington Post Friday. 

Donald Prater, the FDA’s acting deputy commissioner for food, said that there was extensive research required before the agency could launch an investigation into the growing conditions.

But food safety experts and some former top FDA officials criticized the agency for waiting so long after publicly linking the company’s shredded lettuce to a national outbreak that has sickened more than 13,000 people and caused two deaths. 

Barbara Kowalcyk, director of George Washington University’s Institute for Food Safety and Nutrition Security, told the Post that in-person work at the facility was necessary for prevention. 

“Ideally, as soon as [the FDA] traced it back to the source, they would be out there working with the facility and specifically working with Taylor Farms to do a root-cause analysis so that we can understand what happened,” Kowalcyk said. “That’s really what’s going to drive prevention going forward.”

On July 17, the FDA notified Taylor Farms that its shredded iceberg lettuce had tested positive for cyclospora. Taylor Farms falsely claimed that the FDA had later walked back its determination, but still promptly recalled all of the shredded iceberg lettuce that was grown and processed in central Mexico out of an “abundance of caution.” A sanitation inspection conducted by Mexican officials between July 18 and July 20 tested negative for cyclospora. The company’s website claims that its own testing of roughly 2,000 samples also tested negative for the parasite. 

Taylor Farms is the country’s largest supplier of fresh produce, and is also pro-Donald Trump. The company sells products to Walmart, Sam’s Club, Kroger, SYSCO, Aldi, Target, and Dollar General.

Before any of this, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reportedly cut back on parasite monitoring. 

President Trump has hit the highest national disapproval rating on gas prices in recorded history, as 79 percent of Americans—and a whopping 52 percent of Republicans—feel negatively about how he’s handled skyrocketing gas prices. 

“No president has been hated more when it comes to gas prices,” CNN’s Harry Enten said during a Friday segment. “79 percent ... that is the highest disapproval rating for any president on record.”  Former Presidents George Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden, who each had their own struggles with gas prices, never eclipsed a 75 percent disapproval rating on the issue. 

“Donald Trump takes the cake as these $4-plus gas prices continue to give us pain at the pump. The American people are taking their anger out on the President of the United States,” Enten said.

The poll’s party line breakdown is even more devastating, as 52 percent of Republicans disapproving may put Trump-backed candidates at risk in their November elections as they have to answer for his decisions—especially in swing states. 96 percent of Democrats disapproved, along with 85 percent of independents. 

These are startling numbers that Trump can’t convincingly blame on decisions Biden made three years ago. Gas prices are high—and will continue to be high—because Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu started bombing Iran and Lebanon, and Iran closed the crucial Strait of Hormuz in response. That’s why your gas is $4 for the third time this year—something else that has never happened before.

President Donald Trump denied reports Friday of horrific conditions onboard the USS Abraham Lincoln—and suggested that the U.S. servicemembers should stay at sea for even longer.  

Trump offered a shockingly callous response while taking a question about the aircraft carrier that’s been deployed since November. 

“Family members of U.S. servicemembers are concerned about conditions onboard the USS Lincoln—” one reporter said. 

“Well no—that ship is moving—no, they’re not,” Trump interjected. “That ship is moving right now, or very shortly, and it’s being replaced with another very similar ship.”

Asked whether he believed that the servicemembers had been deployed for “too long,” Trump had a similarly heartless reply.

“No, no, no. Not nearly long enough,” Trump said.

Family of sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln have detailed the carrier’s multiple issues, including plumbing disasters, disruptions with the delivery of mail, and shortages of food, water, and other supplies. These issues have placed an immense strain on the mental health and wellbeing of sailors on board the ship. It’s gotten so bad that multiple sailors have tried to jump overboard. 

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that the USS George Washington aircraft carrier will soon be deployed to the Persian Gulf from Japan to replace the Abraham Lincoln, part of a previously scheduled rotation plan. But the Lincoln has already been deployed for 250 days and gone a record 200 days without a port call.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth previously claimed that reports about the state of affairs aboard the Lincoln had “misrepresented” the situation. 

Clearly, the president couldn’t care less about U.S. servicemembers or their families. 

Families are coming forward with reports about poor conditions their relatives are facing on U.S. military ships after the Trump administration tried to downplay initial reports from the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln.

One mother told journalist Jim Acosta that her son, a sailor aboard the USS Tripoli, is dealing with low food and hygiene supplies, losing more than 30 pounds in just four months.

Democratic Senator Ruben Gallego rebuked Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth over his dismissal of conditions aboard the Abraham Lincoln, saying Thursday that he was communicating with a military spouse who was forwarding her husband’s text messages.

“Stop lying and fix the problem,” Gallego admonished Hegseth.

The Abraham Lincoln is experiencing multiple issues, including plumbing problems, disruptions with mail delivery, food shortages, and supply shortages, straining the discipline and mental health of sailors on board the ship to the point that some have tried to jump off. One military wife, whose husband jumped overboard, told MS NOW Thursday that her spouse was in the water for about an hour before he was rescued, and she wasn’t told about the incident until four days later.

“I think that it was handled very poorly because they didn’t inform me and they didn’t want me to know, and they’re just trying to cover this up,” the spouse told the network anonymously. She’s waiting for his return to the U.S. after he was medically evacuated from the ship, and said she had difficulty staying in regular contact with him, an aircraft mechanic on his first deployment, because the ship’s internet connection is unstable.

One text message she did receive from him states:

“i think the boat is finally getting to me and i really dont think i can keep up my peace act anymore, you are right about it all not being okay, we were supposed to leave 5th fleet on july 15th but then something had to come up and my last hope of being home soon was gone, im really trying to not feel negative or hopeless but between the wifi and not knowing when i will come home and not knowing what is happening back at home, its really getting me, i dont think i can do another deployment after this and i dont even know if i can finish this deployment.”

The parent of another sailor on the Abraham Lincoln told MeidasTouch that the toilets backed up on the ship just before their son finished his deployment on board. “Overflowing, there was about half a foot of human waste throughout the floor in the restrooms,” the parent said via text.

And another person, whose brother’s fiancée served aboard the USS George H. W. Bush, told MeidasTouch that that carrier was struggling with supply levels.

“They have virtually no food, water, or soap,” the person said.