Connect with us

Hawaii

As crackdown begins in Hawaii, advocates urge immigrants to remain calm

Published

on

As crackdown begins in Hawaii, advocates urge immigrants to remain calm


HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown seems to be happening so quickly, legislators and immigrant advocates are scrambling to blunt its impact here in Hawaii.

The local office of Homeland Security Investigations posted photos on social media of officers from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Drug Enforcement Administration arresting immigrants.

The arrestees were not identified by name and the office did not say how many were arrested, but Gary Singh, an attorney for a few of them, said they had prior removal orders and had been in hiding.

“Their top priorities right now is individuals with final removal order or they have criminal convictions,” Singh said. “Once they wrap that up, there will be many different stages of different categories, I believe.”

Advertisement

Liza Gill, president of the Hawaii Coalition for Immigrants Rights, said the photos and the high-profile military transport deportations are an effort to intimidate immigrants and appeal to Trump’s anti-immigration base.

“The whole purpose is to create fear, is to make people feel very afraid to come out of their homes, to go to school, to go to a doctor’s office,” she said, “and I think that this new federal administration wants to showcase them looking tough, and it looks tough.”

Sandy Ma, an attorney with nonprofit The Legal Clinic, urges concerned immigrants to call the coalition or her office at (808) 777-7071 for answers about their options and rights.

“This federal administration is to drum up fear and we want to allay that concern,” she said.

Ma’s organization is offering written guidance, including small red cards to help immigrants stand up for their rights if approached by law enforcement.

Advertisement

“So, first of all, if ICE comes knocking on their door, they do not have to let them in their door,” Ma said. “Everyone in this country whether they are in this country with documents or without documents have constitutional rights.”

“Always stay calm. Do not run,” Ma said. “Provide them with the red card. You can contact our office for red cards.”

Although the nationwide raids are frightening, advocates are urging immigrants without authorization and their families to go about their daily lives while lawmakers are drafting laws to prevent local law enforcement collaboration with immigration, and to block raids at schools, churches or hospitals.

Hawaii Sen. Karl Rhoads, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, points out that by enforcing local laws, Hawaii law enforcement is already helping find and lead to deportation of criminals.

He also doesn’t think that the Hawaii public is as supportive of mass deportation as other states.

Advertisement

“It’s better that people enter the country legally, but does it really make any sense to spend all this time and energy resources money on often breaking up families and sending back people who are otherwise just doing all the jobs the rest of us don’t want to do?” he said.



Source link

Continue Reading
Advertisement
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Hawaii

Demand, prices for local eggs skyrocket amid nationwide avian flu outbreak

Published

on

Demand, prices for local eggs skyrocket amid nationwide avian flu outbreak


HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – The hunt for eggs continues with an ongoing shortage in Hawaii caused by a nationwide bird flu outbreak.

With demand comes price increases. A new report from the Hawaii Department of Agriculture says the price for locally produced eggs jumped 28%, from $6.91 in 2021 to $8.87 in 2024.

Long lines formed outside Eggs Hawaii on Waiakamilo Road Wednesday morning with customers waiting patiently to buy local eggs.

Moanalua residents Bill and Lisa Sandusky said they went to Costco, Foodland, and Times in their search for eggs.

Advertisement

“Everywhere, name it. I can’t find anything,” said Lisa Sandusky.

Salt Lake resident Erika Guillory is a caterer, and says the egg shortage has impacted her income.

“I was looking for eggs, and I couldn’t make a cake for one of the events that I had this weekend,” she said. “I’m not making as much money with the cakes that I normally make, but it’s hard to make a cake without eggs.”

Eggs Hawaii has a one-tray limit.

Meanwhile, the state says the price for imported mainland eggs increased by nearly 52% from $5.50 to $8.35.

Advertisement

“The increase in local production of eggs has been closing the price gap with imported mainland eggs,” said Hawaii Board of Agriculture chair Sharon Hurd.

“The avian influenza outbreak on the mainland is another example of why food security in Hawaii is so important. Supporting local farmers and ranchers helps to ensure our food supply,” Hurd said.

While avian flu has been confirmed in Hawaii, officials say no Hawaii egg production facilities have been impacted.



Source link

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Hawaii

Chilling details emerge after schoolmate arrested in Hawaii girl’s 1977 murder

Published

on

Chilling details emerge after schoolmate arrested in Hawaii girl’s 1977 murder


New DNA technology allows investigator better chance at solving decades old cold cases

Advertisement


New DNA technology allows investigator better chance at solving decades old cold cases

02:47

Advertisement

Former Hawaii lawmaker Suzanne Chun Oakland remembers arriving at school one morning in 1977 to an eerie buzz.

The 15-year-old had met up with girlfriends as usual before class at Honolulu’s McKinley High School when she learned a student named Dawn Momohara had been found dead on the second floor of a school building.

“I don’t know how we got word of it, but everything spread really quickly,” Chun Oakland said.

Chun Oakland didn’t know Momohara, who was 16, but the unsolved death has haunted her and other McKinley students and staff for nearly half a century. That was until last week, when police used advances in DNA technology to arrest a 66-year-old resident of a Utah nursing home.

The suspect, former McKinley student Gideon Castro, was scheduled to make an initial court appearance Friday before a judge in Salt Lake County District Court. He remained in custody Thursday with the bond for his release set at $250,000, according to Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office records.

Advertisement

Castro’s attorney, Marlene Mohn, did not respond to email and phone messages seeking comment.

Momohara had been sexually assaulted and strangled, police said.

dawn-crop-screenshot-2025-01-31-063751.jpg
Dawn Momohara

Honolulu Police


“I was just really sad,” Chun Oakland recalled earlier this week. “I think for our student body, of course there’s that concern that what if he’s still out there and he does it to somebody else.”

Advertisement

On March 21, 1977, shortly after 7:30 a.m., Honolulu police found Momohara dead. She was partially clothed and lying on her back with an orange cloth tied around her neck, said Lt. Deena Thoemmes, of Honolulu Police. A subsequent autopsy ruled Momohara was strangled to death, and the medical examiner said there were signs of sexual assault.

Details from more than four decades ago are fuzzy for 1967 McKinley graduate Grant Okamura, who was the school’s 28-year-old band teacher in 1977, but the morning Momohara was found has remained a core memory.

Momohara’s sister — one of his flute players — arrived at school that day not knowing her sister had been found dead, he recalled. The sister was called to the office and later walked into the band room, devastated.

“The other students were trying to console her,” Okamura said. “At that point, I couldn’t have band. How do you have a class? She just sat there crying.”

She didn’t return to school for weeks afterward.

Advertisement

He doesn’t remember the sister’s name. The Associated Press was unable to make contact with any possible relatives. Okamura said he met Momohara a few times when he let her into the air-conditioned band room to wait for her sister.

The morning before Momohara was killed, she got a call from an unknown male and told her mother she was going to a nearby shopping center with friends. That was the last time her mother saw her, police said.

Police released sketches of a person of interest and a possible vehicle described by witnesses as a 1974 or 1975 Pontiac Lemans. A witness reported seeing the car when he and his girlfriend drove through campus the night before Momohara died. The witness saw a man and the car on the grass near the school’s English building, Thoemmes said.

Police released sketches of a person of interest in Dawn Momohara’s murder.

Advertisement

Honolulu Police


The witness circled back around but the car and the man were gone.

Police were unable to identify a suspect and the case grew cold, though grief lingered over the campus.

Although police retrieved an unknown man’s DNA sample from the teenager’s clothing, they could not identify a suspect. Authorities would not develop meaningful leads in the homicide until decades later.

In 2019, cold case detectives asked a forensic biology unit to examine several items of evidence from the scene, including Momohara’s underwear. They were able to develop a DNA profile in 2020. Then, in 2023, police received information about potential suspects, two brothers who were interviewed in 1977.

Advertisement

Several days after Momohara was killed, detectives interviewed Castro, who graduated from McKinley High in 1976. He said he met Momohara at a school dance that year and last saw her at a carnival on campus in February 1977. Police interviewed his brother, who also met Momohara at the dance.

In November 2023, Honolulu police went to Chicago, where the brother was living. They “surreptitiously” obtained DNA from one of the brother’s adult children, Thoemmes said.

Lab findings excluded the brother as a suspect, but a DNA sample from Castro’s adult son, and later from Castro himself, proved he was responsible, Thoemmes said.

He was arrested last week at the nursing home where he lived in Millcreek, just south of Salt Lake City, on suspicion of second-degree murder.

Neither Okamura nor Chun Oakland remembered Castro.

Advertisement

Chun Oakland graduated in 1979 and grew up to become a Democratic member of the Hawaii Senate. She said Momohara’s killing bothered her over the years, especially when she would meet victims through her work as a lawmaker or as a board member of the nonprofit Sex Abuse Treatment Center, a statewide program provding services for sexual assault survivors.

Chun Oakland said she is grateful an arrest was possible even after all these years.

“I think the community in general, and our elected officials, they know the importance of trying to preserve the evidence that can someday be able to see justice for that individual or individuals,” she said.



Source link

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Hawaii

Flights disrupted at Hawaii airports due to severe weather, visibility issues

Published

on

Flights disrupted at Hawaii airports due to severe weather, visibility issues


HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – Travelers at Hawaii airports experienced delays and cancellations due to severe weather Thursday.

Hawaii News Now issued a First Alert Weather Day from Wednesday night through Friday morning as a strong winter storm moves through Hawaii.

A ground stop was issued for interisland flights statewide that essentially kept planes from taking off or landing for about an hour.

The ground stop continued at Daniel K. International Airport in Honolulu, which was ongoing as of 3:30 p.m., and applied to all interisland as well as inbound flights.

Advertisement

“Grounding was because of visibility,” said Hawaii Department of Transportation Director Ed Sniffen. “It was very difficult for for pilots to come into or leave Honolulu Airport because of the visibility due to the storm.”

Incoming transpacific flights were diverted to other airports, officials said.

This meant delays for travelers, some of whom had been waiting for hours to get to their intended destinations.

“Based on the satellites I was watching, it looked like we could actually maybe miss the the weather and get home before it hit too hard, but when we were on our way here, I could tell that there might be possibilities of cancellations,” said Pahoa resident Brittany Hutchins.

“Hopefully we make it to Kauai on time, because we have a rental car, hotels all lined up, so it would be a little inconvenient if things didn’t work out, but you know as long as it’s safe,” said Ninglu Weng, a visitor from Winnipeg, Canada.

Advertisement

Transportation officials say they’re coordinating with airlines on flight schedules to make sure things run as smoothly as possible.

They also say that travelers should be in touch with their airline for more information.

Hawaiian Airlines said travel waivers are available for guests traveling to/from Honolulu (HNL), Lihue (LIH), Hilo (ITO), Kona (KOA), and Kahului (OGG) between Wednesday and Friday due to the inclement weather.

Officials also said a power spike at Honolulu’s airport triggered fire alarms and blew out some circuits that needed to be reset.

Advertisement



Source link

Continue Reading
Advertisement

Trending