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Mariachi Brothers Detained by ICE Invited to Open for Kacey Musgraves After Release

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Mariachi Brothers Detained by ICE Invited to Open for Kacey Musgraves After Release

The crowd went wild when the three Gámez-Cuéllar brothers and their father took the stage on Sunday night.

It was no ordinary concert. Two months ago, the brothers and their father, all musicians, were being held in federal immigration detention centers. Now, dressed in black mariachi suits, they were opening for the country music star Kacey Musgraves in New Braunfels, Texas.

Just before they went on, the family uttered a prayer of thanks. “Thank you, Father, for giving us this great opportunity,” Antonio Yesayahu Gámez-Cuéllar, 18, addressed God, as he stood next to his 15-year-old brother, Caleb Gámez-Cuéllar; their 12-year-old brother, Joshua Gámez-Cuéllar; and their father, Luis Antonio Gámez. “We ask you, Father, to protect us and bathe us in your light.”

In early March, the Gámez-Cuéllar family became snarled in President Trump’s mass deportation campaign. Their detention by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents drew widespread and bipartisan outcries that led to the family’s release from an immigration facility in Dilley, Texas. The oldest sibling, Antonio, was released from a separate detention center near the border.

Shortly after the family was released, Ms. Musgraves extended an invitation to the brothers on Instagram: “great so come on the road with me.”

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Antonio and Caleb, along with their younger brother, Joshua, all renowned mariachi players from McAllen, Texas, jumped at the opportunity to open three shows for Ms. Musgraves with their father. The performances on her Middle of Nowhere tour began Sunday and will continue for two more days at Gruene Hall in New Braunfels, northeast of San Antonio. The venue is a whitewashed building that resembles a small church and considers itself the oldest continuously operating dance hall in Texas.

“We were honored to be invited,” their mother, Emma Guadalupe Cuéllar López, said. At the concert, Antonio belted out a Spanish-language rendition of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” to applause and cheers.

Moments earlier, he whistled Michael Jackson’s song “Thriller,” as he helped his younger brother Joshua adjust his bright red moño charro, a mariachi tie. Their father kissed Joshua’s forehead as encouragement.

“It is wild to believe that we went from being in such a dark place to opening a show for one of country’s biggest stars,” Antonio said.

Last June, Representative Monica De La Cruz, Republican of Texas, invited the brothers to perform at the U.S. Capitol with their bandmates and then visit the White House. Antonio was crowned the best mariachi trumpeter in Texas earlier this year.

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For the last three years, the family lived a version of the American dream, in a part of the country where mariachi music is central to public education and border culture.

The Gámez-Cuéllar family entered the United States in 2023 at the border crossing in Brownsville, Texas, on an asylum claim and settled in nearby McAllen. Mr. Gámez, the father, said his family had fled San Luis Potosí, Mexico, where cartel members had kidnapped him.

Their immigration status remains in limbo, pending future court dates, he said.

The family members said they had followed the law by attending every court date and had a check-in with ICE officials in January. Initially, they said, they were told to return in June, but then the family received an unexpected call from ICE saying that they needed to check in on Feb. 25. They were swiftly detained.

In interviews before the show, family members described being held in deplorable conditions at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, a sprawling jail fashioned out of trailers that serves as the country’s largest family immigration detention site.

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Mr. Gámez said he tried not to think about the moment his oldest son was handcuffed and transferred to another detention center near the border, “like if he was a criminal,” he said. “It was very painful.”

“We are happy to be together again, far from there,” Ms. Cuéllar Lopez added.

The detention center in Dilley, where most of the family was held, was shuttered by President Joseph R. Biden Jr. in 2024 and reopened by President Trump last year. The center has since become an often-criticized symbol of the crackdown on immigrant families. It was where Liam Conejo Ramos, the 5-year-old boy detained by federal agents in Minnesota, was held with his father until a similar outcry led to their release.

After they performed four songs, the family members returned to their green room and collapsed on the couches. Mr. Gàmez said he was happy with their numbers. “It was a great experience,” he said.

They hope it’s not the last one. On a recent day in April, the Gámez-Cuéllar family said the brothers were focused on the future. Antonio, who is graduating from high school this year, plans to attend the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and join its mariachi team. His brothers intend to keep playing for their school bands.

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“Mariachi music will be in our future,” Antonio said.

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Trump fires last members of election commission, inciting fears of midterm ‘chaos’

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Trump fires last members of election commission, inciting fears of midterm ‘chaos’

Donald Trump has terminated the remaining members of the independent, federal commission that assists election administration officials nationwide just a few months before the midterm elections, multiple outlets reported Thursday.

The remaining three commissioners of the four-member bipartisan commission ⁠were forced out on Thursday in different ways. The one Republican appointee resigned and the other ⁠two, Democratic appointees were notified of their terminations via email from ​the White House presidential personnel office.

“On ‌behalf of President ‌Donald J Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position ‌as Commissioner of the Election Assistance Commission is terminated, effective immediately. Thank you for your service,” the email, seen by Reuters, said.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Election Assistance Commission serves as a “national clearinghouse of information on election ‌administration”, accredits testing laboratories and certifies voting systems, and maintains the national mail-voter registration form developed by the National ​Voter Registration Act of 1993, according to the commission’s website. The terminations follow Trump and top administration officials’ advocacy to change vote-by-mail requirements and investigations into the 2020 election outcome, which Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

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“It is ⁠irresponsible and dangerous that this Administration remains dead set on ​causing chaos for ​our election officials across this ​country,” Arizona secretary of state Adrian Fontes said in a ​Thursday statement. “This ‌move undermines the integrity ​of nonpartisan ​election administration.”

The 2002 law that established the commission, the Help America Vote Act, states the president can appoint replacements to the commission.

It is unclear how Trump will move ahead with the commission.

Reuters contributed reporting

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Former Olympian pleads not guilty in reflecting pool vandalism charges

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Former Olympian pleads not guilty in reflecting pool vandalism charges

Former U.S. Olympian David Hearn (left) walks with his attorney Norman Eisen to speak to reporters and protesters gathered after his arraignment at the Superior Court of the District of Columbia in Washington, D.C. on Thursday.

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Former U.S. Olympic canoeist David Hearn pleaded not guilty to damaging the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in D.C. Superior Court Thursday morning.

Federal prosecutors charged Hearn with a single count of destruction of property causing more than $1,000 in damage to the pool.

Hearn has previously claimed, which his attorneys repeated during a short press conference outside the court, that he simply touched the water in the pool out of curiosity.

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The Trump administration had just completed a $14 million renovation of the pool.

But shortly after the work finished, peeling paint and algae gathered in the water. The remodel has been largely criticized as a massive failure and waste of taxpayer dollars.

Superior Court Judge Carmen McLean released Hearn on his own recognizance. His next hearing is scheduled for Aug. 5.

Norm Eisen, one of Hearn’s attorneys, spoke to reporters outside of court following the hearing. He said the administration is using Hearn as a “scapegoat … for their own failures.”

“It is not a crime to touch the reflecting pool, to touch water in the United States of America,” he said.

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Prosecutors say there is a host of evidence against Hearn.

This is a developing story.

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Three more people charged with damaging Reflecting Pool after Trump’s multimillion-dollar restoration | CNN Politics

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Three more people charged with damaging Reflecting Pool after Trump’s multimillion-dollar restoration | CNN Politics

Three more people have been criminally charged with destruction of property at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

Officers say they detained Cameron Thiers, Sophie Dennison-Gibby and Justin Carreno one Saturday afternoon in June and described in court documents witnessing them peeling and removing pieces of blue paint from the Reflecting Pool.

One officer “witnessed Carreno reach down into the reflecting pool and pull up a piece of the blue paint,” according to the court documents.

The officer who detained Dennison-Gibby “found 1 additional piece of the reflecting pool liner” in her purse, the documents said.

All three incidents were recorded on the officers’ body worn cameras, they said in the court documents.

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Several “partnering law enforcement agencies assigned to the Reflecting Pool” working with US Park Police were involved in detaining the two men and one woman — including officers from Texas, Oklahoma, Montana and California.

One of the officers said in court documents that Thiers “admitted to removing a piece of blue sealant from the Reflecting Pool and still had it in his hand when I made contact with him.”

The three defendants were arraigned in court Wednesday and pleaded not guilty to the misdemeanor charges of destruction of property with a value less than $1,000. The judge ordered them to stay away from the Reflecting Pool.

Lawyers for Thiers and Dennison-Gibby declined to comment. CNN has reached out to Carreno’s attorney.

If found guilty of destruction of property, the defendants could be fined up to $1,000 and face a maximum of 180 days behind bars.

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The New York Times first reported that three additional people had been charged with damaging the Reflecting Pool.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that vandals caused major damage to the pool by gashing the lining after his administration spent more than $14 million on renovations, though he has not provided evidence to support that claim. The officers who charged Carreno, Thiers and Dennison-Gibby did not accuse them of gashing the lining.

Former Olympic canoeist David Hearn was indicted by a grand jury in Washington, DC, last week for allegedly damaging the Reflecting Pool. Hearn — unlike Carreno, Thiers and Dennison-Gibby – was charged with destruction of property with a value of more than $1,000 which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, if convicted. He is set to be arraigned in court Thursday.

Crews began draining the Reflecting Pool over the weekend to make repairs, according to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, for the second time in three months.

The move comes after weeks of problems – algae blooms, green-hued water, a chipping bottom and the administration’s allegations of vandalism – that have plagued the iconic landmark, making its woes the subject of national interest.

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