We recently covered Gov. Josh Green’s press conference on Tuesday, held at the Hawai‘i State Capitol, in which he and other lawmakers and community leaders called for anti-ICE legislation here in the Islands. The event was hosted by the ACLU of Hawai‘i, the Legal Clinic of Hawai‘i and the Hawai‘i Coalition for Immigrant Rights, attended by Green, Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke, House Speaker Nadine Nakamura and other lawmakers. It was held as a vigil for Alex Pretti, who had been shot and killed by Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis Saturday.
This is Official Hawai‘i — state government policy leaders — and it’s very upset about Minneapolis, where now two activists have been killed while interfering with federal law enforcement. In their telling, it’s ICE that is out of control, and Hawai‘i has to do something to keep things like that from happening here.
Except the laws they’re proposing would recreate the very conditions that fostered a battleground in Minneapolis. If passed, they would increase, not decrease, the likelihood of danger for everyone involved — arrestees, protestors, ICE agents, bystanders. Everyone.
How?
Let’s back up a second. If you’re upset about Minneapolis, do you ever wonder why you aren’t upset about cities in Texas, Florida, or Tennessee, where ICE is also detaining, arresting and deporting illegal immigrants?
What made Minneapolis different?
Specific decisions by Minnesota politicians and lawmakers to withhold local law enforcement support. This forced ICE to conduct its arrests in public, while these same politicians gave fiery speeches denouncing ICE as unbridled fascists. Officials there even withheld the local police support that would’ve kept order as the fired-up activists took the most confrontational approach possible short of open insurrection.
If you don’t believe me, maybe you’ll believe the cops there:
“Minnesota cops beg Walz, pols to let them work with ICE, say they could have prevented shootings,” New York Post.
In cities where local authorities help, there is no mayhem in the streets.
So what is Hawai‘i doing? Holding press conferences decrying ICE while proposing the same kind of adversarial legislation.
We went into more detail in the original article, so to keep it brief, a package of House and Senate Bills would do such things as prohibit local law enforcement agencies from entering into an agreement with ICE to carry out immigration enforcement on ICE’s behalf; prohibit ICE from interviewing people while in local custody (even though this is the safest place to do it); prohibit local cops from inquiring about a person’s immigration status; limit information sharing between state and county agencies and ICE; and more.
Green has promised to fast-track this legislation. Maybe, instead, legislators should be thoughtful and deliberate. I’d prefer they legislate about reality not distortions.
What distortions? Take a look at our photo, above, of Gov. Green and his supporters from Tuesday’s press conference. What do you see? Earnest, sincere, worried faces, to be sure.
One also sees claims and assertions on signs.
“PEOPLE MURDERED BY ICE … AND PEOPLE KILLED BY TRUMP’S IMMIGRATION AND DEPORTATION PRISONS:”
There follows a list of at least 30 visible names, which I started looking up, at random. And first of all, I should say, this sign is not an expose of secret knowledge. You can find the notices of “Detained Alien Deaths” at ICE’s own website, as required by Congress. Here’s what I found:
Oscar Duarte. Duarte illegally entered the U.S. the first time 1976 in Arizona. He was charged with such crimes as burglary, theft and drug possession between 1984 and 2000. He was convicted in 2005 of sex crimes against children and sentenced by the Superior Court of Arizona 20 years in prison. That’s where ICE found him in January 2025, in an Arizona prison, before moving him to an ICE detention center in preparation for deportation. There his poor health was observed, and he was sent, not to any prison, but to Phoenix Specialty Hospital — a real hospital — where he was treated for six months before dying of natural causes.
Carlos Valdez. Assuming he is the same man is Roberto Carlos Montoya Valdez, he never made it to an ICE facility nor was he murdered. When ICE raided an LA Home Depot, he fled, unpursued, straight into the 210 Freeway in Monrovia, where he was hit by a car.
Tien Phan. A citizen of Vietnam, he was originally granted lawful permanent resident status in the U.S. in 1999, lost that status following a drug crime conviction. Last June, he was detained at Immigration Processing Center in Texas. An LPN there noted his multiple medical conditions, told him to take his insulin every day for diabetes. Phan would not take his insulin. Health care workers there also noted his high cholesterol and prescribed a medication for that, too. He wouldn’t take it. He was found having a seizure and transferred to a hospital where his own next of kin signed a do-not-resuscitate order for him, opting for hospice care instead. Phan died in the hospital when staff withdrew life support for that transfer.
Nhon Nguyen. Vietnamese citizen, originally granted Legal Permanent Resident status in the U.S. in 1983. Convicted of murder in Orange County, Calif., in 1991. By the time he was detained at the El Paso Processing Center last February, he had a host of health problems and he was quickly transferred to the University Medical Center for evaluation, then the Long-Term Acute Care Hospital — a physician-owned hospital — where he stayed for many months, being treated for dementia until he died in the hospital of this condition.
I’m four names in and I’m not finding “PEOPLE KILLED BY TRUMP’S IMMIGRATION AND DEPORTATION PRISONS.” I’m finding people who ICE treated promptly and moved to real hospitals when their health conditions were serious. The records don’t say who paid for their care. I’m assuming that once the federal government assumed responsibility for them, taxpayers paid for everything.
The first three names on the sign have red asterisks, so I assume these are the ones that — iron-clad, all-caps, unequivocally — fall under the “PEOPLE MURDERED BY ICE” heading. Renee Good. Keith Porter. Geraldo Campos. The sign must’ve been made before Alex Pretti’s shooting. Renee Good’s case is familiar to all, and everyone has made up their mind as to murder vs. justifiable homicide vs manslaughter. The other two?
Keith Porter. Killed by an off-duty ICE agent on New Year’s Eve in Carson, Calif., when the agent investigated sounds of gunfire near his apartment and found Porter holding a rifle and shot him. Doesn’t seem related to any question of Porter’s citizenship, or any ICE operation. And as for the circumstances, I’ll just share some California reporting from ABC7 Eyewitness News:
Advocates say Porter had been firing the gun into the air as a way of observing the holiday — a practice routinely condemned by law enforcement officials.
"Yes, it was illegal, but at the end of the day, it's an American tradition," said organizer Najee Ali, the director of Project Islamic Hope.
I can’t even. Really?
Geraldo Campos. Cuban, here illegally since 1996, with past convictions in the U.S. for weapons charges, sexual abuse of a child; petit larceny; DUI and drug crimes. Died Jan. 3 in the Camp East Montana ICE facility following some kind of altercation with guards. His death has been ruled a homicide, it’s unclear where things stand with an investigation to determine if it was murder. Department of Homeland Security says Campos was belligerent and attempting suicide and needed to be restrained, his death accidental. Other detainees claim he was suffocated by guards in the encounter.
And if that’s true, and they were in the wrong, throw the book at them. Just like we would any guard at any Hawai‘i prison that did such a thing. But I wouldn’t take this sign’s word for it, it so far proving to be less than fair and honest.
Green and Hawai‘i lawmakers are not responsible for every word of every sign that might appear in their vicinity. But no sign at this particular event was there by accident. This was a stage-managed event, designed for publicity. In the largest sense, Green, the Hawai‘i lawmakers, and the nonprofits leading the Make Hawai‘i Minneapolis campaign are standing up for these claims as if they were incontrovertible facts. They are just so certain things are this way and they’re intent on rushing legislation with fierce urgency. They're doing so with what looks a fairly obvious mix of good, if poorly thought-out, intentions and cynical, politicized grandstanding.
Under such circumstances, maybe stop and think before blindly passing any of these bills.
A. Kam Napier is editor in chief of Aloha State Daily. His opinions in Pipikaula Corner are his own and not reflective of the ASD team.
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A. Kam Napier can be reached at kam@alohastatedaily.com.
