By HOLLY RAMER and AMANDA SWINHART, Associated Press

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — After six 12-hour shifts milking cows, José Molina-Aguilar’s lone day off was hardly relaxing.

On April 21, he and seven co-workers were arrested on a Vermont dairy farm in what advocates say was one of the state’s largest-ever immigration raids.

“I saw through the window of the house that immigration were already there, inside the farm, and that’s when they detained us,” he said in a recent interview. “I was in the process of asylum, and even with that, they didn’t respect the document that I was still holding in my hands.”

Four of the workers were swiftly deported to Mexico. Molina-Aguilar, released after a month in a Texas detention center with his asylum case still pending, is now working at a different farm and speaking out.

“We must fight as a community so that we can all have, and keep fighting for, the rights that we have in this country,” he said.

Members of Migrant Justice, a community group advocating for migrant farmworkers’ rights, hold a rally outside the Vermont Statehouse in Montpelier, Vt., on Friday, June 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Amanda Swinhart)

The owner of the targeted farm declined to comment. But Brett Stokes, a lawyer representing the detained workers, said the raid sent shock waves through the entire Northeast agriculture industry.

“These strong-arm tactics that we’re seeing and these increases in enforcement, whether legal or not, all play a role in stoking fear in the community,” said Stokes, director of the Center for Justice Reform Clinic at Vermont Law and Graduate School.

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That fear remains given the mixed messages coming from the White House. President Donald Trump, who campaigned on a promise to deport millions of immigrants working in the U.S. illegally, last month paused arrests at farms, restaurants and hotels. But less than a week later, the assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security said worksite enforcement would continue.

Such uncertainty is causing problems in big states like California, where farms produce more than three-quarters of the country’s fruit and more than a third of its vegetables. But it’s also affecting small states like Vermont, where dairy is as much a part of the state’s identity as its famous maple syrup.

Nearly two-thirds of all milk production in New England comes from Vermont, where more than half the state’s farmland is dedicated to dairy and dairy crops. There are roughly 113,000 cows and 7,500 goats spread across 480 farms, according to the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets, which pegs the industry’s annual economic impact at $5.4 billion.

That impact has more than doubled in the last decade, with widespread help from immigrant labor. More than 90% of the farms surveyed for the agency’s recent report employed migrant workers.

Among them is Wuendy Bernardo, who has lived on a Vermont dairy farm for more than a decade and has an active application to stop her deportation on humanitarian grounds: Bernardo is the primary caregiver for her five children and her two orphaned younger sisters, according to a 2023 letter signed by dozens of state lawmakers.

Wuendy Bernardo, foreground center, a migrant dairy farmworker at risk of deportation, is greeted by Migrant Justice staff member Will Lambek, left, outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in St. Albans, Vt., on Friday, June 20, 2025. Lambek led a rally in support of Bernardo as she reported to the office for an appointment. (AP Photo/Amanda Swinhart)

Hundreds of Bernardo’s supporters showed up for her most recent check-in with immigration officials.

“It’s really difficult because every time I come here, I don’t know if I’ll be going back to my family or not,” she said after being told to return in a month.

Like Molina-Aguilar, Rossy Alfaro also worked 12-hour days with one day off per week on a Vermont farm. Now an advocate with Migrant Justice, she said the dairy industry would collapse without immigrant workers.

“It would all go down,” she said. “There are many people working long hours, without complaining, without being able to say, ‘I don’t want to work.’ They just do the job.”

Ramer reported from Concord, N.H.

By JIM VERTUNO and JOHN SEEWER, Associated Press

KERRVILLE, Texas (AP) — Camp Mystic says it is “grieving the loss” the loss of 27 campers and counselors as the search continued Monday for victims of catastrophic Texas flooding over the Fourth of July holiday weekend.

The statement adds another layer of heartbreak to the devastating flooding sent a wall of water through the century-old summer camp.

“We have been in communication with local and state authorities who are tirelessly deploying extensive resources to search for our missing girls,” the camp said in a statement posted on its website. “We are deeply grateful for the outpouring of support from community, first responders, and officials at every level.”

Residents of Kerr County began clearing mud and salvaging what they could from their demolished properties as they recounted harrowing escapes from rapidly rising floodwaters late Friday.

Reagan Brown said his parents, in their 80s, managed to escape uphill as water inundated their home in the town of Hunt. When the couple learned that their 92-year-old neighbor was trapped in her attic, they went back and rescued her.

“Then they were able to reach their toolshed up higher ground, and neighbors throughout the early morning began to show up at their toolshed, and they all rode it out together,” Brown said.

A few miles away, rescuers maneuvering through challenging terrain filled with snakes continued their search for the missing, including 10 girls and a counselor from Camp Mystic, an all-girls summer camp that sustained massive damage.

Gov. Greg Abbott said 41 people were unaccounted for across the state and more could be missing.

In the Hill Country area, home to several summer camps, searchers have found the bodies of 68 people, including 28 children, Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said.

Ten other deaths were reported in Travis, Burnet, Kendall, Tom Green and Williamson counties, according to local officials.

The governor warned that additional rounds of heavy rains lasting into Tuesday could produce more dangerous flooding, especially in places already saturated.

Families were allowed to look around the camp beginning Sunday morning. One girl walked out of a building carrying a large bell. A man whose daughter was rescued from a cabin on the highest point in the camp walked a riverbank, looking in clumps of trees and under big rocks.

One family left with a blue footlocker. A teenage girl had tears running down her face as they slowly drove away and she gazed through the open window at the wreckage.

Searching the disaster zone

Nearby crews operating heavy equipment pulled tree trunks and tangled branches from the river. With each passing hour, the outlook of finding more survivors became even more bleak.

Volunteers and some families of the missing came to the disaster zone and searched despite being asked not to do so.

Authorities faced growing questions about whether enough warnings were issued in an area long vulnerable to flooding and whether enough preparations were made.

President Donald Trump signed a major disaster declaration Sunday for Kerr County and said he would likely visit Friday: “I would have done it today, but we’d just be in their way.”

“It’s a horrible thing that took place, absolutely horrible,” he told reporters.

Prayers in Texas — and from the Vatican

Abbott vowed that authorities will work around the clock and said new areas were being searched as the water receded. He declared Sunday a day of prayer for the state.

In Rome, Pope Leo XIV offered special prayers for those touched by the disaster. The first American pope spoke in English at the end of his Sunday noon blessing, saying, “I would like to express sincere condolences to all the families who have lost loved ones, in particular their daughters who were in summer camp, in the disaster caused by the flooding of the Guadalupe River in Texas in the United States. We pray for them.”

Desperate refuge and trees and attics

Survivors shared terrifying stories of being swept away and clinging to trees as rampaging floodwaters carried trees and cars past them. Others fled to attics, praying the water wouldn’t reach them.

At Camp Mystic, a cabin full of girls held onto a rope strung by rescuers as they walked across a bridge with water whipping around their legs.

Among those confirmed dead were an 8-year-old girl from Mountain Brook, Alabama, who was at Camp Mystic, and the director of another camp up the road.

Two school-age sisters from Dallas were missing after their cabin was swept away. Their parents were staying in a different cabin and were safe, but the girls’ grandparents were unaccounted for.

Warnings came before the disaster

On Thursday the National Weather Service advised of potential flooding and then sent out a series of flash flood warnings in the early hours of Friday before issuing flash flood emergencies — a rare alert notifying of imminent danger.

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Authorities and elected officials have said they did not expect such an intense downpour, the equivalent of months’ worth of rain for the area.

Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice said authorities are committed to a full review of the emergency response.

Trump, asked whether he was still planning to phase out the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said that was something “we can talk about later, but right now we are busy working.” He has said he wants to overhaul if not completely eliminate FEMA and sharply criticized its performance.

Trump also was asked whether he planned to rehire any of the federal meteorologists who were fired this year as part of widespread government spending cuts.

“I would think not. This was a thing that happened in seconds. Nobody expected it. Nobody saw it. Very talented people there, and they didn’t see it,” the president said.

Seewer reported from Toledo, Ohio. Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Christopher Weber in Los Angeles; Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tennessee; Cedar Attanasio in New York; Sophia Tareen in Chicago; Michelle Price in Morristown, N.J.; and Nicole Winfield in Rome.

St. Paul Rookies Fastpitch has been offering summer travel league softball for girls from St. Paul and the surrounding area for more than 40 years. But the program is likely ending because of low recruitment numbers over the past few seasons, according to board members Stephanie Eberhard and Jennifer McNattin.

The organization couldn’t put a 2025 team together because only a few players signed up.

“We fought really hard to figure out how to spread the word,” McNattin said. “Numbers have just really plummeted, and we’ve seen a huge decrease because kids are going to clubs or they’re going to the suburbs.”

McNattin said the older fastpitch players get, the more difficult it is to find an affordable softball program. Most recreational leagues only have teams for players ages 14 and under, so high school girls often join more expensive club teams.

The Rookies provided an accessible program for St. Paul high school girls. They kept player fees down by fundraising at the annual Rookies Tournament and having families complete volunteer service hours.

“It gives families who are maybe just looking to try the sport out an opportunity that’s a little bit lower stakes than something like an elite club team, which typically costs quite a bit more to play,” Eberhard said.

‘I really fell in love with softball’

Eberhard grew up in Roseville and started playing for the Rookies when she was 15. She said the coaches and program leaders made her feel like a valued part of the community.

“The first summer I played with the Rookies was the year I really fell in love with softball,” Eberhard said. “It felt like I was not only learning the game, but also how to become a better person and how to kind of walk through the world.”

She went on to coach for the Rookies and become a board member and the director for the annual Rookies Tournament.

The 39th annual tournament still happened in June this year, but without a St. Paul Rookies team participating. McNattin said it was likely their last tournament.

Moving forward

The program is considering other options to keep the Rookies alive, such as combining with another local softball organization that doesn’t have a fastpitch program for high school girls. They also thought about turning the program into a place for high school teams to practice together during the summer.

“Neither have come to fruition yet,” Eberhard said. “Most likely it (the program) is ending. I think it would kind of require some pretty dedicated parties to hand it off to and have them continue forward with the organization.”

Both of McNattin’s daughters played for the Rookies, and she said the team connected parents and siblings along with players. She has made lifelong friends from time spent volunteering at Rookies events and watching tournaments.

Eberhard said the team was “just a wonderful community.”

“I really love the Rookies,” Eberhard said. “It’s really sad to see them maybe go.”

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Today is Monday, July 7, the 188th day of 2024. There are 177 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On July 7, 1981, President Ronald Reagan announced he was nominating Arizona Judge Sandra Day O’Connor to become the first female justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Also on this date:

In 1865, four people were hanged in Washington, D.C. for conspiring with John Wilkes Booth to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln: Lewis Powell, David Herold, George Atzerodt and Mary Surratt, the first woman to be executed by the federal government.

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Today in History: July 6, Althea Gibson wins Wimbledon

In 1898, President William McKinley signed the Newlands Resolution, approving the annexation of the Republic of Hawaii.

In 1930, construction began on Boulder Dam (known today as Hoover Dam).

In 1976, the United States Military Academy at West Point included female cadets for the first time as 119 women joined the Class of 1980.

In 1990, the first “Three Tenors” concert took place as opera stars Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras performed amid the brick ruins of Rome’s Baths of Caracalla on the eve of the FIFA World Cup final.

In 2005, terrorist bombings in three Underground stations and a double-decker bus killed 52 people and four bombers in the worst attack on London since World War II.

In 2010, Los Angeles police arrested and charged Lonnie Franklin Jr. in the city’s “Grim Sleeper” serial killings. (Franklin, who was sentenced to death for the killings of nine women and a teenage girl, died in prison in March 2020 at the age of 67.)

In 2013, Andy Murray became the first British man in 77 years to win the Wimbledon title, beating Novak Djokovic in the final.

In 2016, Micah Johnson, a Black Army veteran who served in Afghanistan, opened fire on Dallas police, killing five officers in an act of vengeance for the fatal police shootings of Black men; the attack ended with Johnson being killed by a bomb delivered by a police robot.

In 2021, a squad of gunmen assassinated Haitian President Jovenel Moïse and wounded his wife in an overnight raid on their home.

Today’s Birthdays:

Musician-conductor Doc Severinsen is 98.
Former Beatle Ringo Starr is 85.
World Golf Hall of Famer Tony Jacklin is 81.
Actor Joe Spano is 79.
Actor Roz Ryan is 74.
Actor Billy Campbell is 66.
Basketball Hall of Famer Ralph Sampson is 65.
Singer-songwriter Vonda Shepard is 62.
Actor-comedian Jim Gaffigan is 59.
Actor Amy Carlson is 57.
Actor Jorja Fox is 57.
Actor Robin Weigert is 56.
Basketball Hall of Famer Lisa Leslie is 53.
Actor Kirsten Vangsness (“Criminal Minds”) is 53.
Actor Berenice Bejo (BEH’-ruh-nees BAY’-hoh) (Film: “The Artist”) is 49.
Actor Hamish Linklater is 49.
Olympic figure skating medalist Michelle Kwan is 45.
Guitarist Synyster Gates (Avenged Sevenfold) is 44.
Pop singer Ally Brooke (Fifth Harmony) (TV: “The X Factor”) is 32.
Pop musician Ashton Irwin (5 Seconds to Summer) is 31.
Country singer Maddie Font (Maddie and Tae) is 30.