Florida

Teenage migrant dies in Florida while in U.S. custody

Published

2 years ago

May 13, 2023

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Teenage migrant dies in Florida while in U.S. custody

Migrant teen dies while in custody in Safety Harbor.

Kylie Jones reports

SAFETY HARBOR, Fla. – A 17-year-old migrant has died in Florida while in U.S. custody.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says the teen was referred to its care on May 5 and placed at the Gulf Coast Jewish Family and Community Services in Safety Harbor.

The Honduras Secretary of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation identified the teen as Angel Eduardo Maradiaga Espinoza.

The press release about this incident can be found by clicking here.

Honduran officials say he traveled to the U.S. without a parent or guardian. They say Espinoza was found unconscious at the Gulf Coast Jewish Family and Community Services on May 10 and taken to Mease Countryside Hospital, where he died.

“The Government of Honduras, through the Embassy in Washington, has requested that the Office of Resettlement and Refugees (ORR) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) conduct an expedited investigation to clarify this sad fact and, if liability exists, the full weight of the law applies,” The Secretary of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation said.

The front of Gulf Coast Jewish Family and Community Services

The Honduran government says forensic authorities will do an autopsy to determine how Espinoza died.

This tragedy highlights the importance of caring for unaccompanied minors in the United States in the bilateral migration agenda between the two countries,” The Secretary of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation said.

READ: ‘We are not guilty’: Members of St. Pete Uhuru Movement address federal charges filed against them

“We’re going to continue seeing this is there is not a better approach and a better system and a better approach to take care of these people,” said Ana Lamb, a Tampa Bay community activist.

Fox 13 reached out to the Gulf Coast Jewish Family and Community Services, and a spokesperson referred us to the Office of Refugee Resettlement with the HHS.

“The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is deeply saddened by this tragic loss, and our heart goes out to the family with whom we are in touch. As is standard practice for any situation involving the death of an unaccompanied child or a serious health outcome, HHS’ Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) Division of Health for Unaccompanied Children (DHUC) is reviewing all clinical details of this case, including all inpatient health care records. A medical examiner investigation is underway. Due to privacy and safety reasons, ORR cannot share further information on individual cases of children who have been in our care.”

While in ORR care, children have access to health care, legal services, translation services, and mental and behavioral health counselors and can connect with family through a phone call in a private area at least twice a week. A list of services and requirements can be found by clicking here.

Immigration attorney Richard Maney says many churches or outreach organizations take in undocumented minors and help connect them with resources. He says these children can apply for special immigrant juvenile visas.

READ: Teen taken to the hospital after shooting at Wildwood Park in St. Pete, police say

“They have to show that they’re under 21, that they’re unmarried, that they’ve been subject to neglect or abuse, and that it would be in the best interest of them to not be returned to their country, and also it’s not feasible to reunite them,” Maney said. “If they can be reunited with their parents, that’s the priority.”

Maney says this is not a path to citizenship but to residency.

“It allows the juvenile to stay here and get a work permit and be secure in the country,” Maney said. “And the steps for that they have to be unmarried. Have to be under 21 years of age. They have to be found dependent by a state court. So, I think a lot of young people may not realize that. But many of our churches are active in supporting them.”

It’s unclear how Espinoza died, but officials told Fox News that “no altercation of any kind” was involved in his death.

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Florida

3 most underrated signees in Florida State football's 2025 class

Published

7 hours ago

December 22, 2024

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3 most underrated signees in Florida State football's 2025 class

Florida State football had an embarrassing 2024 campaign where it finished with a 2-10 record. This is not the expectation of what the Seminoles are all about.

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Head football coach Mike Norvell understood the urgency as he could not allow the program to snowball into a laughing stock after a productive 13-1 season in 2023. Norvell was heading into a pivotal sixth season with his job on the line.

As a result, he went out and hired a ton of new coaches on his staff, including Gus Malzahn, Tim Harris Jr., Herb Hand, Tony White, Terrance Knighton, and Evan Cooper. This was uncharted territory for Norvell since he had never had to fire multiple coaches like that.

Nonetheless, we were wondering how the Seminoles’ 2025 recruiting class would play out with new coaches as well as the struggling year in 2024.

The recruiting class did well, and it finished with the 20th-best in the 247Sports Composite rankings (prospects can still sign in February). In this article, I want to highlight three of the most underrated signees from Florida State’s 2025 recruiting class.

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U.S. Amateur runner-up Noah Kent is transferring to Florida

Published

15 hours ago

December 22, 2024

Press Room

U.S. Amateur runner-up Noah Kent is transferring to Florida

Noah Kent is heading home.

The 2024 U.S. Amateur runner-up is transferring to Florida, he announced Saturday. The sophomore at Iowa, whose hometown is Naples, Florida, entered the transfer portal earlier this month, and he made his decision to join coach J.C. Deacon and the 2023 national champions come next fall.

Because of NCAA rules, Kent won’t be eligible to compete for Florida until the 2025-26 season, but he can finish his sophomore year with the Hawkeyes. This fall, he placed in the top 13 all four tournaments, his best finish being a T-5 at the Fighting Irish Classic.

And, of course, he has a tee time at Augusta National Golf Club in the spring.

Kent will essentially be the fourth member of Florida’s 2025 signing class, which ranked second in the country on signing day. He’ll join a talented roster that includes Parker Bell, Mathew Kress and Jack Turner, though with new NCAA roster limits coming, there’s bound to be some unprecedented roster turnover in college golf before the start of the 2025-26 season.

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State Your Case: Do Panthers or Lightning own state of Florida? | NHL.com

Published

22 hours ago

December 22, 2024

Press Room

State Your Case: Do Panthers or Lightning own state of Florida? | NHL.com

There are two NHL teams in Florida: the Florida Panthers and the Tampa Bay Lightning.

They are separated by about 250 miles and have been fierce rivals since the Panthers joined the NHL for the 1993-94 season. The Lightning joined the League a season earlier.

Florida (21-11-2) and Tampa Bay (18-10-2) meet for the first time this season at Amalie Arena in Tampa on Sunday (5 p.m. ET; FDSNSUN, CRIPPS, SN, TVAS).

The teams have played each other 157 times in the regular season; the Panthers have gone 77-51-19, and the Lightning are 70-64-13. There have been 10 ties.

For years, the rivalry was a parochial affair, deeply important to hockey fans in the state but under the radar nationally. Lately, though, Florida supremacy has often meant NHL supremacy.

The Panthers are the reigning Stanley Cup champions and defeated the Lightning in five games in the best-of-7 Eastern Conference First Round last season to start that title march. They reached the Stanley Cup Final two seasons ago, going on a miracle run before losing to the Vegas Golden Knights. The season before that, they won the Presidents’ Trophy with an NHL-best 122 points but lost to the Lightning in a second-round sweep, marking the second straight time that their noisy neighbors ended their season.

The Lightning won back-to-back Stanley Cup championships in 2020 and 2021 before reaching a third straight Final in 2022, losing to the Colorado Avalanche. Tampa Bay won the Presidents’ Trophy in 2018-19.

This season, each team is on course for another appearance in the Stanley Cup Playoffs and has a point percentage of better than .600.

So which team has the merits to claim bragging rights in this all-Florida showdown as the rivals face off for the first time this season? That’s the question debated by NHL.com senior writers Amalie Benjamin and Dan Rosen in the latest installment of State Your Case.

Benjamin: Let’s lay out what the Lightning have accomplished in their 32-season history: They’ve won the Stanley Cup three times, becoming the first team from Florida to win it when they took the championship in 2004. But that doesn’t come close to what they’ve accomplished during the past 11 seasons, starting in 2013-14, when they became a powerhouse. They’ve been to the Stanley Cup Playoffs 10 times in those 11 seasons, making the Stanley Cup Final in a whopping four of them. Let me repeat that: Four trips to the Cup Final in the past 11 seasons, winning twice, in 2020 and 2021. And if that’s not enough, they made two more trips to the Eastern Conference Final, in 2016 and 2018. Forget Florida’s team. They’re the team of the past decade in the entire NHL.

Rosen: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But what have you done for me lately? Florida’s team fluctuates. It was the Lightning. It is the Panthers. They’ve got the Stanley Cup. They went to the Stanley Cup Final two years in a row. Sure, a few years ago, this wasn’t even a debate. Florida’s team, the Panthers? Please. No shot. Even the top executives with the Panthers would tell you that. But things change. With success come the riches. Just think about the past three seasons for the Panthers: Presidents’ Trophy winners in 2021-22, Stanley Cup Final in 2022-23, Stanley Cup champions in 2023-24. The Lightning lost in the 2022 Cup Final, lost in the first round in six games the next season and lost in the first round in five games to the Panthers last season. Florida’s team is Florida.

Benjamin: OK, sure, you have a point. Florida has done pretty darn well lately. But let’s see how history will judge the state of Florida and its hockey teams. Hall of Famers? The Lightning have got ’em. Though Steven Stamkos has moved on to the Nashville Predators, the Hall of Fame is going to come calling, and the forward will go in as a member of the Lightning. Add in coach Jon Cooper, forward Nikita Kucherov, defenseman Victor Hedman and goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy, and you’re talking at least five future Hall of Famers on a single team. That’s not just good, that’s historically good. It’s a group whose names are synonymous with winning, with the Stanley Cup, with the state of Florida. That’s powerful. That says the Lightning win this debate, no question.

Rosen: I have a question. Is Aleksander Barkov not paving his way to the Hall of Fame? Is Sergei Bobrovsky, with a Stanley Cup ring, 400-plus wins and two Vezina Trophy wins as the NHL’s best goalie, not a lock for the Hall of Fame? Is Paul Maurice, who could finish his career with at least the second-most coaching wins of all time, along with his Stanley Cup ring, not also a lock for the Hall of Fame? In the way-too-early department, could Matthew Tkachuk and Sam Reinhart be future Hall of Famers? I lied. That’s four questions. But you get the point. You brought up the Hall of Fame and I countered. That’s why the Lightning do not win this debate without question. Could they win it? Yes, certainly, if we were having this debate in 2023. It’s almost 2025. It’s a different world. It’s the Panthers’ world, at least in Florida. The Lightning are just living in it. At least the sun is still shining on them too.

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