MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WSFA) – In the first week of his second term, President Donald Trump signed 37 executive orders. Eight of those dealt with immigration.

Maria Sahonic legally immigrated to the United States when she was just a toddler. Years later, she served the U.S. in the Air Force. Now she says she does not feel as safe as she once did in the country she calls home.

“I find myself having to walk around with papers that identify myself as a United States citizen,” said Sahonic. “I fear that I will be stopped for really no reason at all, and not being able to have them see that it’s credible, the ID that I have.”

A new directive from the Department of Homeland Security allows U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to enter “sensitive” areas, such as schools and churches, to make immigration arrests.

Pastor Bolivar Reyes with the Spanish language service at Capitol City Church of the Nazarene says this should be handled differently.

Speaking in Spanish, Reyes said, “The people who come and spend years here working for one reason, and for another they can’t legalize their documentation, but they are not people who lead a bad life.”

Reyes says the immigrants he knows are hardworking people who left their countries in search of a better life.

“While they come from other nations and other countries where life is not easy, and they come here because they are trying to work,” he said, translated from Spanish. “I’m talking about hardworking people, people who conduct themselves well and who really show that they are good citizens.”

Through tears, Sahonic expressed the heartache of her community.

“It’s just that it’s hard to think that somebody sees me and they don’t see me,” she said.

The Trump administration has assigned arrest quotas to ICE agents, directing them to arrest at least 1,200 to 1,500 people per day. ICE agents have made arrests all over the country, and Sahonic says they have been spotted in Montgomery.

The Drug Enforcement Agency has assisted ICE in one arrest in north Alabama, however, they have told ICE they would help with arrests in central Alabama.

Sign up for the WSFA Newsletter and get the latest local news and breaking alerts in your email!

Copyright 2025 WSFA. All rights reserved.

Welcome to BamaCentral’s “Just a Minute,” a video series featuring BamaCentral’s Alabama beat writers. Multiple times a week, the writers will group up to provide their take on a topic concerning the Crimson Tide or the landscape of college sports.

Watch the above video as BamaCentral staff writer Hunter De Siver and Will Miller discuss the extreme difficulty of Alabama men’s basketball’s final 11 games.

Earlier in the season, Alabama men’s basketball had a gauntlet of a 7-game non-conference slate on the schedule as the Crimson Tide went 5-2 during a stretch against four ranked teams that featured two road games, four neutral-site and one home game.

It’s impossible at this point in the season to name any other conference in college basketball that’s been better than the SEC. Four of No. 4 Alabama’s first seven conference opponents have been and still are ranked. The Crimson Tide has 11 SEC games remaining in the regular season and eight of its contests are currently scheduled to be top-25 matchups.

This is Alabama’s second gauntlet of the season:

If the season ended today, Alabama’s No. 4 spot in the AP Poll would give the Tide one of the No. 1 seeds in the bracket. ESPN’s Joe Lunardi actually has Alabama at No. 3 overall and placed it as the top seed in the Midwest region on Tuesday.

The question now is if the Crimson Tide can retain that status throughout the upcoming gauntlet. The number of wins can’t fully determine whether or not this will be the case, as a couple of other teams outside of the conference are also in the running for a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

But for now, BamaCentral’s Hunter De Siver predicts Alabama will go 8-3 in the stretch with losses to Kentucky at home and Tennessee and Auburn on the road. This would bring Alabama’s final 2024-25 regular season record to 25-6.

BamaCentral’s Will Miller predicts the Crimson Tide will also finish 8-3 in the second gauntlet, bringing Alabama’s final regular season record to 25-6. However, his losing predictions are slightly different as he believes the Tide will be swept by Auburn and fall to Tennessee. Additionally, Miller agreed with De Siver that the Kentucky game may not go in Alabama’s favor and suggested that the same outcome could occur against Florida.

Read More: Why It Will Be ‘Ridiculously Hard’ for Alabama Basketball to Defeat Mississippi State

How to Watch: No. 4 Alabama Basketball at No. 14 Mississippi State

Alabama Basketball vs. Mississippi State Official Injury Report

(CBS DETROIT) – Family members and advocates have asked Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to intervene in a death penalty case set to move forward in Alabama. 

“What more can I do but just ask. Gov. Whitmer, please give him that chance. Give the family a chance. Let him come back here,” said Carol Frazier, the mother of Demetrius Frazier, who is scheduled for death next week. 

Carol Frazier and anti-death penalty advocates delivered a letter and a petition to the Whitmer’s office, imploring her to intervene in Demetrius Frazier’s case. But for their part, advocates did not dispute Frazier’s guilt. 

“Now, Demetrius Frazier is not innocent. He was convicted of some horrific crimes. We do not deny that we do not in any way diminish that,” said Abraham Bonowitz, the executive director of Death Penalty Action. 

Now in his 50s, Frazier was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in Michigan for felony murder and criminal sexual conduct back in 1993. He was later convicted of the rape and murder of a woman in Alabama three years later, and he faces the death penalty there. 

But Bonowitz argued that Frazier shouldn’t have been extradited to Alabama in 2011. Bonowitz and Frazier’s mother asked Whitmer to negotiate with Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey to have Frazier brought back to Michigan to serve the rest of his life without parole. 

“She is the only person with the power to stop this execution who would be willing to do so,” said Bonowitz. 

Advocates say Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office declined to intervene in another state’s criminal proceedings. CBS News Detroit reached out to the governor’s office for comment on Tuesday but did not hear back. 

“I love him. I know he made mistakes. He committed to those mistakes,” said Carol Frazier. 

Frazier is set to be executed in a gas chamber on Feb. 6.