Twins lose Byron Buxton to injured list with rib injury

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Twins players are bracing for a week of roster moves with the trade deadline approaching on Thursday evening. Already the Twins have sent Chris Paddack to the Detroit Tigers, and more moves are likely over the next couple days.

It wasn’t a trade, but the Twins made another big move on Tuesday, placing outfielder Byron Buxton on the injured list before the game. Buxton left Saturday’s game early and has not played since as he deals with left ribcage inflammation.

The Twins sent Buxton for magnetic resonance imaging on Sunday and manager Rocco Baldelli said that day the diagnosis was “a good outcome” and that Buxton would “hopefully be back very soon.”

But now his day-to-day injury will have him out for at least 10, and the Twins will have to make do without their most-impactful player. The all-star center fielder is hitting .282 with a .905 OPS and 23 home runs in 85 games while stay relatively healthy. He missed two weeks after colliding with Carlos Correa and suffering a concussion earlier in the season but otherwise has been out on the field most days, the most consistent bright spot on the team.

The Twins have a number of players who can play center in his absence, including Harrison Bader, DaShawn Keirsey Jr. or even Willi Castro, who hasn’t played there much this year but has in the past But Bader and Castro are impending free agents and could be dealt before Thursday.

Twins fill Paddack’s spot with Ohl

Injuries to Pablo López, Bailey Ober and David Festa, plus the trade of Paddack on Monday, have left the starting rotation in flux. With Paddack gone — he has been scheduled to start on Tuesday — the Twins turned to rookie Pierson Ohl, who was making his major league debut.

Ohl, a 14th-round draft pick in 2021, had a 2.17 earned-run average across 66 1/3 minor league innings pitched this year. Most of his season has been spent in Double-A Wichita, but he made seven appearances at Triple-A St. Paul before his promotion. The Twins have had him on a similar schedule to Travis Adams, who pitched on Sunday and has since been sent down, where they are throwing in shorter outings every four days rather than longer starts every five days.

“He’s very comfortable out there on the mound,” Baldelli said of Ohl. “I think he’s a pretty methodical and thoughtful pitcher.”

Briefly

Ryan Jeffers returned to the Twins on Tuesday after missing the past three games on the paternity list. Jeffers and his wife, Lexi, welcomed their second child, a son whom they named Hayes, on Saturday. … The Twins have yet to name a starter for Wednesday game, though it is possible it could be Ober returning from the injured list.

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Wife of Marine Corps veteran released from ICE custody after advocacy from GOP Senator’s office

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By JACK BROOK, Associated Press

A Marine Corps veteran’s wife has been released from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention following advocacy from Sen. John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican who backs President Donald Trump’s hardline immigration crackdown.

Until this week, Mexican national Paola Clouatre had been one of tens of thousands of people in ICE custody as the Trump administration continues to press immigration officers to arrest 3,000 people a day suspected of being in the U.S. illegally.

Emails reviewed by The Associated Press show that Kennedy’s office said Friday that it put in a request for the Department of Homeland Security to release her after a judge halted her deportation order earlier that week. By Monday, she was out of a remote ICE detention center in north Louisiana and home in Baton Rouge with her veteran husband Adrian Clouatre and their two young children.

Kennedy’s constituent services representative, Christy Tate, congratulated Adrian Clouatre on his wife’s release and thanked him for his military service. “I am so happy for you and your family,” Tate wrote in an email to Adrian Clouatre. “God is truly great!”

Kennedy’s office proved “instrumental” in engaging with the Department of Homeland Security, according to Carey Holliday, the family’s attorney. Kennedy’s office did not provide further comment.

Another Louisiana Republican, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, also intervened recently with the Department of Homeland Security to secure the release of an Iranian mother from ICE detention following widespread outcry. The woman has lived for decades in New Orleans.

Kennedy has generally been a staunch supporter of Trump’s immigration policies.

“Illegal immigration is illegal — duh,” Kennedy posted on his Facebook page on July 17, amid a series of recent media appearances decrying efforts to prevent ICE officers from making arrests. In April, however, he criticized the Trump administration for mistakenly deporting a Maryland man.

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The Department of Homeland Security previously told The AP it considered Clouatre to be “illegally” in the country.

An email chain shared by Adrian Clouatre shows that the family’s attorney reached out to Kennedy’s office in early June after Paola Clouatre was detained in late May.

Tate received Paola Clouatre’s court documents by early July and said she then contacted ICE, according to the email exchange.

On July 23, an immigration judge halted Paola Clouatre’s deportation order. After Adrian Clouatre notified Kennedy’s office, Tate said she “sent the request to release” Paola Clouatre to DHS and shared a copy of the judge’s motion with the agency, emails show.

In an email several days later, Tate said that ICE told her it “continues to make custody determinations on a case-by-case basis based on the specific circumstances of each case” and had received the judge’s decision from Kennedy’s office “for consideration.”

The next working day, Paola Clouatre was released from custody.

“We will continue to keep you, your family and others that are experiencing the same issues in our prayers,” Tate said in an email to Adrian Clouatre. “If you need our assistance in the future, please contact us.”

Back with her children

Paola Clouatre had been detained by ICE officers on May 27 during an appointment related to her green card application.

She had entered the country as a minor with her mother from Mexico more than a decade ago and was legally processed while seeking asylum, she, her husband and her attorney say. But Clouatre’s mother later failed to show up for a court date, leading a judge to issue a deportation order against Paola Clouatre in 2018, though by then she had become estranged from her mother and was homeless.

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Clouatre’s release.

Adrian Clouatre said he wished the agency would “actually look at the circumstances” before detaining people like his wife. “It shouldn’t just be like a blanket ‘Oh, they’re illegal, throw them in ICE detention.’”

Reunited with her breastfeeding infant daughter and able to snuggle with her toddler son, Paola Clouatre told AP she feels like a mother again.

“I was feeling bad,” she said of detention. “I was feeling like I failed my kids.”

It will likely be a multiyear court process before Paola Clouatre’s immigration court proceedings are formally closed, but things look promising, and she should be able to obtain her green card eventually, her attorney said.

For now, she’s wearing an ankle monitor, but still able to pick up life where she left off, her husband says. The day of her arrest in New Orleans, the couple had planned to sample some of the city’s famed French pastries known as beignets and her husband says they’ll finally get that chance again: “We’re going to make that day up.”

Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

ICE says detained Maine police officer overstayed visa. The chief says he cleared a federal check

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By PATRICK WHITTLE, Associated Press

OLD ORCHARD BEACH, Maine (AP) — The chief of police in a Maine resort town has called for an investigation into the arrest by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement of one of its officers, who the chief said was federally approved to work in the country in May.

ICE arrested Old Orchard Beach Police Department reserve officer Jon Luke Evans, of Jamaica, on July 25. The agency said Evans was illegally present in the U.S. and unlawfully attempted to purchase a firearm.

ICE said in a Monday statement that Evans had legally entered the U.S. in September 2023 and violated the terms of his admission by overstaying his visa. But Old Orchard Beach Police Chief Elise Chard said in her own Monday statement that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security had verified that Evans was authorized to work in the U.S. in May of this year.

The Old Orchard Beach Police Department and ICE officials did not respond to requests for a status update about Evans’ case. It was unclear on Tuesday if he had access to an attorney.

This image provided by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement shows Jon Luke Evans. (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) via AP)

ICE and Chard presented different accounts of Evans’ employment by the town. Chard said the department was notified by federal officials that Evans was legally permitted to work in the country and his authorization document would not expire until 2030.

Chard said the town submitted information via the Department of Homeland Security’s E-Verify Program. E-Verify is an online system launched in the late 1990s that allows employers to check if potential employees can work legally in the U.S. Some large private employers use it, but most do not.

She said the department is “distressed and deeply concerned about this apparent error on the part of the federal government” and will investigate to determine what steps it can take to ensure the town’s compliance in the future. She said the department would also conduct an internal review of the circumstances of the case.

“The Old Orchard Beach Police Department was never officially informed about Evans’ detention, and the department officially learned the details of the matter in a news release issued by Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” Chard said.

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ICE said in a statement that Evans admitted to its officers that he attempted to purchase a firearm for his employment as a police officer with the town. That triggered an alert to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which coordinated with ICE to make the arrest, the agency said in a statement.

Evans was scheduled to depart the U.S. in October 2023 but never boarded his departing flight, the statement says.

“We have a police department that was knowingly breaking the very law they are charged with enforcing in order to employ an illegal alien,” Patricia H. Hyde, the acting field office director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Enforcement and Removal Operations Boston, said in a statement.

Old Orchard Beach is a popular summer vacation destination in Maine, beloved for its boardwalk, beach and downtown amusement park. It is a highly seasonal community that is most active in the summer, when it swells with visitors and requires a larger police presence than the slower, colder months.

Maine is one of about a dozen states that allow noncitizen residents to work in law enforcement, Chard said. They are part-time, seasonal employees who are assigned a variety of tasks, including community policing and beach patrol by foot and bicycle, she said.

Evans passed physical and medical checks, and a background check, Chard said. He also underwent the standard course of training before being deployed on duty, she said.

Los Angeles County seeks ordinance preventing law enforcement from concealing their identities

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By CHRISTOPHER WEBER, Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Los Angeles County leaders want to prohibit law enforcement officers from concealing their identities while on duty, a response to recent immigration raids during which some federal agents refused to identify themselves or covered their faces.

The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday voted 4-0, with one abstention, to direct county counsel to draft an ordinance that bars officers, including federal agents, from wearing masks, with limited exceptions such as for medical protection or during undercover operations. Officers would also be required to visibly display identification and agency affiliation while out in public.

Since early June, immigration agents have swarmed Southern California, arresting hundreds of people and prompting protests against the federal raids and the subsequent deployment of the National Guard and Marines. About half the Guard troops and all the Marines were pulled out of LA in recent weeks.

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Supervisor Janice Hahn, who co-authored the motion, said the raids carried out by the Trump administration have sparked fear and residents have a right to know who is stopping, questioning or detaining them.

“Across the county, people are being pulled out of their cars, beaten, and ripped from their families by men in tactical gear with balaclavas, no badges, and no names,” Hahn said. “That’s not how law enforcement in a democracy should operate.”

Hahn conceded that it is unclear if the county will be able to enforce the law when it comes to actions by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agencies. “Ultimately, it might have to be decided by a court,” she said.

Legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky said Tuesday that a court could have to decide if the ordinance is interfering with the ability of officers to carry out their duties.

“They key is that it has to apply to all law enforcement. It can’t just apply to federal law enforcement,” said Chemerinsky, dean of the law school at the University of California, Berkeley.

Administration officials have defended the practice of officers wearing masks, saying immigration agents have faced harassment as they have gone about their enforcement. Officials said agents are hiding their identities for their safety to avoid things like death threats and doxing, where someone’s personal information is released without their permission on the internet.

FILE – Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solis speaks during a news conference Wednesday, May 3, 2023, in Los Angeles. (Dean Musgrove/The Orange County Register via AP,File)

“I’m sorry if people are offended by them wearing masks, but I’m not going to let my officers and agents go out there and put their lives on the line, their family on the line because people don’t like what immigration enforcement is,” ICE acting director Todd Lyons said last month.

In the state legislature, a pending measure would ban local, state, and federal police from covering their faces while conducting operations in California. And a similar bill has been introduced into the U.S. Congress by Democratic senators Alex Padilla, of California, and Cory Booker, of New Jersey.

Chemerinsky said the advantage of federal legislation is that it would “clearly be constitutional” because Congress has the power to regulate how federal law enforcement operates.

County counsel has 60 days to submit the draft ordinance to the board for approval.

Supervisor Hilda Solis, the measure’s other co-author, said local officials must set expectations about how law enforcement should conduct themselves while in the county.

“The use of masks, tactical gear, and refusal to show identification is not only alarming and confusing, but erodes public trust and raises serious safety concerns,” Solis said.