Northeast
ICE nabs illegal migrant accused of heinous crime and released by Massachusetts sheriff’s office
An El Salvadoran illegal immigrant wanted for allegedly sexually assaulting a child has been arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Massachusetts, after a local sheriff’s office ignored a detainer to hold him.
ICE said its Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) Boston arrested 55-year-old Hugo Israel Ruiz on Dec. 17 on felony charges of indecent assault and battery on a child under the age of 14, adding that he remains in custody pending immigration and criminal proceedings.
The Revere Police Department arrested Ruiz on Aug. 22, and his hearing was held at the Chelsea District Court.
The court allowed Ruiz to be released from the Nashua Street Jail on bail, despite an immigration detainer requesting ICE be notified of his release.
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ICE arrested Hugo Israel Ruiz, and illegal immigrant wanted on charges of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14, on Dec. 17, 2024, after a court in Suffolk County, Massachusetts failed to honor ICE’s detainer and released him on bail. (ICE)
But the sheriff’s office that operates the jail ignored the detainer, releasing Ruiz into the public without notifying ICE.
“ERO Boston will take every opportunity to identify, locate and take into custody criminal noncitizens facing felony charges and keep them in custody until their criminal and immigration proceedings are resolved,” ERO Boston acting Field Office Director Patricia H. Hyde said. “Not only is this our mission, it is also the lawful thing to do.”
In October 2019, the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department terminated its contract with ICE, and instead chose to shift resources due to the increasing population of women entering the Suffolk County House of Correction, according to a statement from Sheriff Steve Thompkins at the time.
“We are ending our contract with ICE to reallocate our resources towards helping local women to address long-standing issues that have contributed to their involvement in the criminal justice system,” Tompkins said in the statement. “Our gender-specific programming, which is among the best in the country, allows us to address these issues, which include domestic violence, sexual exploitation and substance use disorders, to name a few.”
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An exterior view of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency headquarters is seen July 6, 2018 in Washington, DC. U.S. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
The statement, which appears on his campaign website, noted that the contract with ICE to house federal immigration detainees was first signed in 2003. The then acting director of ICE ERO Boston said the agency was disappointed by the sheriff’s decision after sharing a “mutually beneficial” partnership for over a decade.
The latest arrest comes as Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey has said that her state police will “absolutely not” be cooperating with the expected mass deportation effort by the incoming Trump administration, warning that she will use “every tool in the toolbox” to “protect” residents in the blue state.
President-elect Trump has pledged to launch the “largest domestic deportation operation in American history” to deport millions of illegal immigrants. One report by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) estimated 50,000 migrants have arrived in the state since 2021.
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Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey held a morning press conference announcing significant action related to the state’s emergency shelter system. (Photo by Jonathan Wiggs/The Boston Globe via Getty Images) (Photo by Jonathan Wiggs/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
“I do think it is important that we all recognize that there is going to be a lot of pressure on states and state officials. I can assure you we’re going to work hard to deliver,” Healey said following President-elect Trump’s resounding election win last month.
Last year, Healey declared a state of emergency in the state due to the surge and called for federal action. She also acknowledged that the state’s policies may be a draw for migrants.
“Many of these families are migrants to Massachusetts, drawn here because we are and proudly have been a beacon to those in need,” she wrote in a letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Fox News Digital’s Michael Dorgan contributed to this report.
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One day before the Fourth of July, police in Yarmouth, Massachusetts say American flags were “ripped down” from a highway overpass that’s named after a two-time Purple Heart recipient.
Yarmouth police said an officer noticed the vandalism Friday on the Lance Corporal William Joseph Donovan Jr. Memorial Bridge over Route 6.
“The officer found American flags forcefully ripped from the fencing,” police said. “Their grommets had been torn out, and flags were ripped apart at the seams left hanging.”
Lance Cpl. William Joseph Donovan Jr., a Dennis-Yarmouth Regional High School graduate, was awarded the Purple Heart twice for injuries sustained in Operation Enduring Freedom. After returning home, he died in a motorcycle crash at 27 years old.
Yarmouth police are investigating the incident and urge anyone with information to contact them.
This isn’t the first time that flags on the bridge were damaged. Last summer, they were similarly torn down before being replaced in a rededication ceremony.
The community has already stepped up to restore the patriotic display that was vandalized on Friday.
State Rep. Steve Xiarhos of Barnstable, who lost his son Marine Cpl. Nick Xiarhos to a roadside bomb in Afghanistan, said “Cape Cod sent a message tonight.”
“You can tear down flags, but you cannot tear down the spirit of this community. If anything, you made people stronger,” Xiarhos posted to Facebook. “You brought people together from all over Cape Cod, united by love of country and respect for those who have served.”
A Times Square Ball Drop, a rolling series of ball drops, timed to occur at midnight on July 3 in every U.S. time zone from Guam to American Samoa, is part of the “Giving 4th Broadcast Benefit Show,” creating a nearly 24-hour celebration of the 250th anniversary. It’s part of the broader “Giving 4th” initiative that aims to make and establish Independence Day the biggest annual day of giving.
A time capsule will be buried in Philadelphia to be opened in 2276 on July 4. It contains a carefully curated collection of letters and artifacts reflecting the leadership, institutions, and communities that shape the country today. It will include contributions from all three branches of the U.S. federal government and submissions from each of the 50 states, Washington D.C., and five territories.
6-minute read
NJ has had an image problem for 250 years. We love it anyway
New Jersey has always had an image problem. Its residents have access to two world-class cities, mountains, beaches. But the punchlines remain.
New Jersey has always had an image problem.
The state was central to the nation’s founding. Its residents have access to two world-class cities, mountains, beaches, suburbs and farms. And yet, for outsiders, the punchlines often ring loudest.
The malls. The Turnpike. “What exit are you from?”
We know the jokes. The big hair, the attitudes and property taxes.
And yet we defend the Garden State.
“I can talk about my state, but you can’t,” said Ashley Koning, director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling at Rutgers University.
Its 2015 poll found more than 75% of New Jerseyans took pride in the state, even as 57% said New Jersey had a negative image.
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Residents polled most often pointed to location, convenience and overall quality of life as reasons New Jersey is a good place to live.
We have a complicated relationship with our state. We’re not blind to its problems, like the cost of living. But we also see its quality of life.
“New Jerseyans have such a wealth of pride,” Koning said. “We’re not afraid to say what we think is wrong with the state and say where we want to see the state improve — but I think we’re also the first ones to defend our state.”
That pride comes with an edge. Jokes about “The Sopranos” still land, but New Jerseyans get the last laugh.
“New Jersey is often a butt of jokes across the country, but I think the real joke is that people don’t get to experience the beauty that is New Jersey,” Koning said. “And I feel like New Jerseyans know that very well.”
That tension may be the best way to understand the state as America approaches its 250th anniversary of independence.
Would Founding Fathers recognize today’s New Jersey?
Would a New Jerseyan from 1776 recognize this place?
“In terms of technology, airplanes, cars, obviously there’s just so much that would be different,” said Maxine Lurie, professor emerita of history at Seton Hall University and chair of the New Jersey Historical Commission.
In the 18th century, a letter crossing the Atlantic could take months.
A person in 1776 might have thought of themselves as a New Jerseyan, but not in the modern sense. They were part of the New Jersey colony, and British subjects.
Local identity was common in the colonies, said Melissa Kozlowski, director of curatorial affairs at the Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music at Monmouth University and director of public history.
“All of the colonies had a very unique identity in the colonial era,” Kozlowski said. “They didn’t feel as if they were one country. That’s why the revolution was such an audacious concept.”
For New Jersey, that local-first identity shows up everywhere today.
The state is built from smaller identities: towns, counties, regions. Whether someone faces New York or Philadelphia affects whether they say Taylor ham or pork roll and what they mean when they say “the city.”
North Jersey vs. South Jersey? Try East Jersey vs. West
That sets up a familiar debate: North Jersey versus South Jersey.
Long before North and South became the dividing line, there was East Jersey and West Jersey.
They were separate colonies before uniting in 1702. The dividing line ran diagonally across the state. People in West Jersey were closer to what we call South Jersey and looked toward Philadelphia. They read Philadelphia newspapers and had business and family connections in Pennsylvania. People in East Jersey looked toward New York.
“So as we look for television stations or for sports teams, we look in those two different directions. In a sense, they did then too,” Lurie said.
Being caught in the shadows of New York and Philadelphia can be a source of pride and irritation at the same time.
“We are caught between two of the most well-known cities in the world,” Koning said.
Rutgers-Eagleton’s polling grew partly out of that problem.
“The Rutgers-Eagleton Poll was meant to bring a voice to the people of New Jersey,” Koning said. “New Jersey feels this identity crisis that that voice often will get lost.”
Central Jersey? For real?
And what about Central Jersey? To northerners and southerners, its very existence is up for debate.
“As a Central Jersey girl, it definitely does exist,” said Koning, who grew up in the region.
Central Jersey generally includes places around Somerset, Middlesex and Mercer counties, with New Brunswick as a kind of middle point, she said. The area has “a little bit of everything,” while also sharing pieces of North Jersey, South Jersey and the Shore.
Identity crisis is nothing new for the Garden State. That nickname, by the way, is credited to Abraham Browning, who coined it in 1876, according to the state library. Browning had been the state attorney general from 1845 to 1850.
During the Revolution, New Jersey produced food both armies needed, and its position between two great cities made it attractive to the British, who — if they could have controlled it — would have divided the colonies, north and south.
They overran the state, but they couldn’t hold it, Lurie said.
British forces held New York for much of the war and they held Philadelphia for about a year. They held New Brunswick for seven months. But the state remained contested thanks to the toughness of New Jerseyans.
600 NJ battles and skirmishes during Revolution
Anytime British and Hessian forces moved into New Jersey, local militias attacked them as they searched for food.
“They couldn’t hold on to it because they were just being picked off,” Lurie said.
There were more than 600 battles and skirmishes in New Jersey during the Revolution, Lurie said. “I’ve always told my students you would not want to have lived here during the Revolution.”
For everyday people, the Revolution was not only about ideals. It was about danger, inflation, raids and not knowing who might appear at the door.
“It affected almost everybody, everywhere in one way or another,” Lurie said.
Well before the New Jersey Turnpike and the Garden State Parkway, New Jersey was already defined by movement. The roads were rougher, but rivers like the Raritan and Passaic helped move goods to hubs like New Brunswick and Newark.
By the 1830s, the Morris Canal helped moved goods east and west across the state between the Delaware River and New York Harbor — an early, watery version of Route 80.
The speed has changed since then. But the state’s role is familiar.
“We are a transitory state,” Koning said.
From taverns to roadside diners
Constant movement helps explain another piece of the identity. A New Jerseyan from 1776 wouldn’t know what to make of a modern roadside diner with its chrome and disco fries. But a roadside stop where people eat and talk would make sense.
“Taverns were really important because that’s where they got news, that’s where they talked to each other,” Lurie said.
Story continues below photo gallery
In a largely agricultural colony with few large buildings, taverns and churches served as gathering places. Elizabethtown, now Elizabeth, was the largest town in the colony, said Lurie. It had about 350 houses.
New Jerseyans still need places to sit and argue about what’s going on. While Lurie thinks the modern idea of an in-your-face New Jersey personality may be more of a 20th-century idea tied to media, Koning sees pushback as part of the culture.
New Jerseyans are fierce defenders of the state because it’s often underestimated.
“Our importance is so undervalued and so understated,” Koning said.
She pointed to New Jersey’s role in the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, invention and entertainment as examples of how much the state has contributed.
New Jersey has produced some of the country’s most famous entertainers. But no single one of them can represent such a diverse state. Bruce Springsteen stands for working class culture. Jon Bon Jovi gives another impression and so did Frank Sinatra.
“You can say Bruce signifies and is emblematic of the hard-working lives within New Jersey and that working culture,” Koning said. “But then at the very same time, in contrast, if we look at Sinatra, this is the smoothness of city-adjacent living and Hoboken.”
No single New Jerseyan
Outsiders may picture “The Sopranos,” “Jersey Shore,” malls and big hair. But New Jersey is too varied to be captured that way, Koning said. “Our uniqueness becomes the stereotype.”
So there’s no single New Jerseyan.
“I think that’s the beauty of our state, much like it’s the beauty of our country and what our country should be about,” Koning said. “The thing that unifies us is our differences bring us together.”
The New Jerseyan of the Revolution would probably flee from the sound of the E Street Band, but they might recognize the geography, the waterways, the pull of the cities and that New Jersey is central to the national story — and still fighting to be seen clearly, and appreciated.
“The historical connections are all around us,” Koning said, “even when we don’t recognize it.”
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