Uncommon Knowledge
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Arizona
Mexican who smuggled migrants over US border gets 10 years in Arizona jail
A Mexican man was found guilty of a number of people-smuggling offenses in Arizona and sentenced to 10 years in jail.
Jesus Ernesto Dessens-Romero, 28, of Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico, was given the sentence by United States District Judge John Hinderaker, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office. He was found guilty by a jury of multiple offenses, including conspiracy to transport and the transportation of illegal aliens for profit and bringing illegal aliens to the United States for profit.
The jury also found that Dessens-Romero put lives at risk during his smuggling offenses, and that he played a critical role in a criminal operation that illegally smuggled migrants into the U.S. from Mexico.
Jae C. Hong/AP
The Mexican smuggler helped undocumented non-citizens reach the U.S. by using WhatsApp to arrange pick-ups and drop-offs. He helped guide five Mexican nationals on foot to cross into the U.S. on February 13, 2021.
Dessens-Romero led the group with limited supplies on a dangerous route through harsh weather conditions into the remote Huachuca Mountains near Fort Huachuca in Southern Arizona where there was less law enforcement patrolling the area.
The group included three sisters – aged 23, 20 and 17 – and their family friend, 16. Two days later, the 23-year-old sister was experiencing significant physical distress and she was unable to eat or walk.
Dessens-Romero claimed they were close to a busy road and could leave the sick woman there to be found. However, he didn’t call emergency services and instead contacted his associates at a transnational criminal smuggling organization.
AP/Denis Poroy
Dessens-Romero then led the rest of the group to Sierra Vista, Arizona, where they were picked up by unidentified co-conspirators and transported further into the U.S.
The family of the woman left behind contacted authorities on February 16, 2021, to report a missing person. Law enforcement officials were unable to locate the missing woman after searching.
Dessens-Romero contacted the surviving sisters on behalf of the smuggling organization to try to convince them to remove a “missing person” social media post.
On November 20, 2021, the 23-year-old’s remains were located in an isolated area of the Huachuca Mountains. Dental records confirmed that the remains belonged to the missing sister.
Dessens-Romero was arrested after being caught transporting two individuals in Tennessee on June 30, 2021, by Highway Patrol.
Jose Luis Magana/AP
“Human smugglers profit from the exploitation of migrants and routinely expose them to violence, injury, and death,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in the statement. “Today’s sentence shows the Justice Department will continue to hold accountable these smugglers and the criminal networks that abuse, exploit, or endanger migrants.”
“Alien smugglers care only about the money to be made and not about the human beings whose lives they endanger,” U.S. Attorney Gary Restaino said in the statement. “Unfortunately, one young woman’s desire for a better life in the United States cost her her life due to the greed and recklessness of Dessens-Romero. This case should serve as a warning to other smugglers and the transnational smuggling organizations they work for: my office and our law enforcement partners will be undaunted in our efforts to bring you to justice.”
The issue of illegal immigration is a hot topic on voters’ minds as the U.S. heads toward the November presidential election.
Commenting on the wider issues to Newsweek, Representative Mark Green, chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, said: “The American people have faced the devastating impacts of President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas’ efforts to roll back the Trump administration’s effective border security measures and replace them with catch-and-release and mass parole for inadmissible aliens.”
The Tennessee Republican said: “Homeland Republicans crafted and passed through the House legislation to address this crisis. From increasing the number of dedicated Border Patrol agents and investing in critical technology for detection and interdiction to ending these reckless catch-and-release policies and seeking to renegotiate Remain in Mexico, the Secure the Border Act is the necessary step to stop this influx––and it’s sitting on Senator Schumer’s desk.”
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
PHOENIX (AZFamily) — The two Republicans running for Arizona attorney general faced each other Thursday in a debate that devolved into insults and name-calling.
State Senate President Warren Petersen is running against military attorney Rodney Glassman in the Republican primary. The debate turned chaotic as the candidates clashed.
“Are you asking the questions, Steve?” Petersen said.
The moderator attempted to regain control. “Gentlemen, we’re going to reset,” he said.
Candidates clash over experience
The debate was the last before early voting begins next month. In between the name-calling, the two candidates argued over their resumes.
Glassman said Petersen does not have the legal experience for the job.
“Warren is just full of information, you can call them lies. He received his law license in December 2023, 28 months ago. He has never filed a lawsuit as a lawyer. He has never prosecuted a criminal as a lawyer,” Glassman said.
Petersen has had a law license for less than three years. He said he worked on cases in Scottsdale while earning his degree. Petersen said his experience as the current state Senate president also counts.
“I have done more in three years than Rodney Glassman will even get done in his life because he’s a trust fund baby who’s just looking for a place. He’s been running for 15 years and he’s lost six elections in a row,” Petersen said.
History of campaigns
Glassman has not won an elected office since he served as a Democrat on the Tucson City Council in 2007. Glassman is an Air Force attorney with 17 years of experience.
Democratic strategist Matt Grodsky said the real winner was the incumbent, Kris Mayes.
“I thought it was entertaining television. I’m glad Arizona got to see up close why these two individuals should be nowhere near the AG’s office,” Grodsky said.
Voting in the primary begins June 24.
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The Arizona man known as the “QAnon Shaman” said Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s new Anti-Weaponization Fund is an abuse of power by a would-be “king.”
Jacob Angeli-Chansley – the face of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot with his red, white and blue face paint and horned fur headdress – denounced the $1.776 billion program as a “slush fund” for Trump to reward his loyalists.
The Justice Department announced the fund on Monday as part of a settlement with Trump, who had sued the IRS for $10 billion over the leak of his tax returns. The settlement included an assurance that the IRS will drop all audits and claims for back taxes against Trump, his family and businesses.
“You think I’m gonna take a f—ing dime from Trump and the government after he’s using this thing to cover him and his family in perpetuity for all of their crimes?” he told Cronkite News by phone. “You think I’m gonna take a dime of that blood money?”
Trump pardoned more than 1,500 people who participated in the Jan. 6 riot the day he returned to the White House in January 2025. Many had been convicted of assaulting police officers.
Cronkite News reached out to 17 of those defendants with Arizona ties. None besides Angeli-Chansley responded.
Thirteen were convicted or pleaded guilty to crimes related to the attack. Four of the cases were dismissed after the pardon. The charges included assault on federal agents, physical violence at the Capitol and seditious conspiracy.
See our previous coverage of the Anti-Weaponization Fund and “QAnon Shaman” in the video player above.
Angeli-Chansley pleaded guilty to a charge of obstruction of an official proceeding. He served 27 months of a 41-month sentence. He was released from federal prison in March 2023.
During the riot, he carried an American flag fastened to a spear and used a bullhorn to call other rioters to the dais in the Senate chamber.
“He stated that ‘Mike Pence is a f—-ing traitor’ and wrote a note on available paper on the dais, stating, ‘It’s Only A Matter of Time. Justice Is Coming,’” according to prosecutors.
At a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing Tuesday, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche defended the compensation fund, saying it will be open to anyone victimized by a politically motivated prosecution, not just Jan. 6 defendants.
“It’s not limited to Republicans. … It’s not limited to the Biden weaponization. It’s not limited to, in any way scope or form, January 6 or to (targets of special counsel) Jack Smith. There’s no limitation on the claims,” Blanche said.
He rejected Democrats’ assertions that the fund is a massive, taxpayer-funded attempt by Trump to whitewash the assault on democracy.
“I think it’s telling that everybody on the left and … the liberal side of the media immediately says it’s a slush fund for President Trump’s friends,” Blanche said. “If anything else, that’s an outright admission that they know that the people that really had this Department of Justice weaponized against them were President Trump and his friends. But … that is not what the AG order that I signed yesterday says.”
Blanche, who served as Trump’s private attorney in several cases – prosecutions over election interference and classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago and allegations of hush money paid to an adult actress ahead of the 2016 election – faced strong criticism from Senate Democrats.
“You are acting today like the president’s personal attorney and that’s the whole problem,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who also noted that a huge banner with Trump’s portrait was draped over the front of the Department of Justice building in February.
At a homeland security committee meeting Tuesday, Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego called for legislation barring establishment of a fund of the sort proposed by the Trump administration.
He called it outrageous to provide compensation to “traitors who attacked the Capitol.”
“No president, Republican or Democrat, should be able to use the federal treasury as a personal checkbook,” he said.
Angeli-Chansley now refers to himself as the “American Shaman.” He was heavily involved in the QAnon movement, which centered on a conspiracy theory that Trump was fighting a cabal of Satan worshippers who engage in child sex trafficking.
He was a strong MAGA supporter when the pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol, interrupting congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.
Angeli-Chansley has since become disenchanted with Trump. He has also repudiated the QAnon movement.
In a rambling phone conversation with Cronkite News, he repeatedly cited Trump’s connections to Jeffrey Epstein, a wealthy financier and convicted sex offender who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting federal trial for trafficking young women and girls for sex.
He reiterated his anger with Trump for resisting the release of the Epstein files.
And he criticized Trump for attacking Iran and supporting Israel, among other things.
Angeli-Chansley sued Trump for $40 trillion in September 2025, asserting he is the true leader of the free world and vowing to use the sum to wipe out the national debt. The lawsuit was dismissed. He later filed a lawsuit against the CIA, FBI, World Bank and others in Maricopa County.
He urged fellow Jan. 6ers to “reject that … money.”
If courts allow the fund to operate, Angeli-Chansley said, it would mean that Trump “can do whatever it is that he wants.”
Teacher unions call for board member’s resignation after ‘Nazi salute’
Teacher unions call for District Boardmember Kimberly Fisher’s resignation after she made a “Nazi salute” during a public meeting on May 26, 2026.
Provided by Deer Valley Unified School District
School teacher unions are calling for the resignation of a Deer Valley Unified School District board member after she made a “Nazi salute” and said “heil’ at the end of a public meeting on May 26.
Boardmember Kimberly Fisher stretched out her arm, making the salute motion and repeating the word “heil” twice after the board president called for a vote to adjourn the meeting.
Fisher defended her actions in a Facebook video after the meeting, stating she made the gesture because she felt that the board had been under a “dictatorship” led by Board President Paul Carver and the district’s superintendent.
“All I could think of tonight was Hitler, so that’s why I said heil or whatever,” Fisher said in an eight-minute-long video.
Prior to the motion, Fisher and the board members were speaking on scheduling future meetings to discuss changes to district boundaries. Superintendent Curtis Finch stated they could not discuss the topic because it was on the meeting’s agenda. Then Carver quickly called for a vote to end the meeting, which prompted Fisher to make the salute.
The board members did not immediately react or acknowledge Fisher’s salute at the May 26 meeting.
This was not the first time Fisher has recently come under scrutiny. In October, she was slammed with a violation of Open Meeting Law by the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, The Daily Independent reported.
Fisher could not be immediately reached for comment.
How the community is reacting to Fisher’s Nazi salute
The local chapter of the Anti-Defamation League, an organization focused on advocating against antisemitism and hate, denounced Fisher’s use of the salute.
“We unequivocally condemn this behavior that glorifies Nazis and Hitler. Regardless of intent, these actions instill fear in the community and are unbecoming of officials entrusted with educating children,” said Sarah Kader, the deputy regional director of ADL Desert, in a social media post.
The Arizona Education Association and the Deer Valley Education Association are calling for Fisher’s resignation.
“Kimberly Fisher should apologize to the DVUSD community and step down,” the state union group wrote on X.
The local teacher union wrote in a Facebook statement that they were “horrified and disgusted” to see Fisher’s actions.
“Any leader who uses a Nazi salute during a School Board meeting is unfit for public service. There is no justification for this behavior,” the union wrote.
Boardmember Stephanie Simacek, in a statement, said “this is what antisemitism looks like when people get comfortable” and called for an “immediate censure.”
“I am calling for accountability. And I am calling on every parent, educator, and elected official Republican or Democrat — to stand up and say clearly: THIS HAS NO PLACE HERE,” she wrote in the statement.
Simacek is also a house member in the Arizona State Legislature and is running for a state senate seat.
She wrote, “What happened in that room was not a joke.”
The school district “does not condone, support, or endorse gestures or language associated with hate, discrimination, intimidation, or violence in any form,” said Kayla Pologa, a spokesperson for Deer Valley, in a written statement.
“As an elected official, Mrs. Fisher speaks and acts independently,” Pologa wrote.
She said Fisher’s views don’t reflect nor should be attributed to other board members or members of the school district.
Who is Kimberly Fisher?
Fisher has been a Deer Valley School District parent for 24 years, according to her biography on the district’s website. She had two children graduate from the district and her third is being homeschooled in his final year, her biography states.
She had previously served on the board from 2015 to 2018.
In 2017, Fisher was the school board president and was criticized for a social media exchange with a teacher.
She was reelected in 2020. Fisher’s current term ends in 2028.
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