This can be a column about lies. Huge lies. Presidential lies. Dumb lies. The kind of lies which have made life in the US a day by day dumpster hearth of dangerous information. The type of lies that may’ve made Frank Sinatra need to knock out a palooka.
Extra on Ol’ Blue Eyes in a bit.
For now let me inform you about one sufferer of President Trump’s mountain of lies whose brush with the administration outlined our 2025.
On June 7, Brayan Ramos-Brito drove east on Alondra Boulevard from Compton towards a Chevron in Paramount to purchase some snacks. It was his break day. It additionally was the weekend when Trump unleashed his deportation Leviathan on Southern California in a marketing campaign that hasn’t stopped.
Ramos-Brito, a cook dinner, had no concept that was occurring as visitors froze on Alondra in entrance of a House Depot. A “stay-at-home kind of man,” he didn’t even vote within the 2024 election as a result of “politics isn’t my factor.”
However because the slender 30-year-old sat in his automobile, he noticed federal immigration brokers who had gathered throughout the road from the House Depot hearth flash-bang grenades at protesters who had been screaming at them to go away. That’s when the second “received to me.”
Ramos-Britos, a U.S citizen, received out of his automobile to yell at la migra, accusing those that appeared Latino of being a “shame.” He mentioned one in all them shoved him right into a scrum of protesters. After that, “all I keep in mind had been knees and kicks” by brokers earlier than they dragged him on the pavement and into the again of a van.
For hours Ramos-Brito and others stayed zip-tied inside as “craziness” erupted exterior. A whole bunch extra residents arrived, as did L.A. County sheriff’s deputies. Smoke from blazes set by the previous and tear fuel canisters tossed by the latter seeped contained in the van — “we stored telling brokers we couldn’t breath, however they simply ignored us.”
Photographs and photographs from the Paramount protest went viral and sparked an excellent larger rally the next day close to downtown L.A. that devolved into torched Waymo vehicles and concrete blocks hurled at California Freeway Patrol autos. Quickly, Trump referred to as up the Nationwide Guard and Marines to occupy the Metropolis of Angels below the pretense that anarchy now dominated right here — despite the fact that protests had been confined to pockets of the metropolis. Siccing the Nationwide Guard on cities is one thing Trump has since tried to duplicate throughout the nation in anywhere that has dared to push again in opposition to immigration sweeps.
Ramos-Brito spent two weeks in a detention facility in Santa Ana stuffed in a cell with undocumented immigrants going through deportation. He confronted federal felony prices of assaulting a federal agent and was accused of being one of many Paramount protest’s ringleaders as properly.
Prosecutors tried to scare him into pleading responsible with threats of years in jail. Regardless of having no cash to rent a lawyer, he refused: “I wasn’t going to take the blame for one thing I didn’t do.”
Federal public defender Cuauhtémoc Ortega represented Ramos-Brito throughout a two-day September trial. Ortega screened video footage to the jury that proved his consumer’s model of what occurred and simply caught federal brokers contradicting one another and their very own discipline stories.
The jury took about an hour to acquit Ramos-Brito on misdemeanor assault prices. He desires to maneuver on — however the lying of the administration received’t let him.
The lies it used to attempt to railroad an harmless man turned out to not be an aberration however a playbook for Trump’s 2025.
The stretch of Alondra Boulevard in Paramount the place a June 7 protest in opposition to immigration brokers resulted within the arrest of 30-year-old Compton resident Brayan Ramos-Brito on allegations he assaulted one in all them. A jury discovered him not responsible.
(Gary Coronado/For The Instances)
Lies, in fact, have fueled the president’s profession from the times he was was a smarmy New York developer driving the coattails of his daddy. This yr he and his apologists employed them like by no means earlier than to attempt to consolidate their grip on all facets of American life. They lied concerning the economic system, concerning the contents of the Epstein information, concerning the efficacy of vaccines, the price of range, fairness and inclusion initiatives, our supposed noninterventionist overseas coverage and a lot extra.
Above all, or at the very least most malignantly, Trump and his crew lied about immigrants. The massive lie. The lie they thought everybody would consider and thus would excuse all the opposite lies. They’ve lied about and maligned nearly anybody they don’t see worthy of being a so-called “heritage American,” aka white.
Trump ran for reelection on a promise to concentrate on concentrating on “the worst of the worst” however has shrugged his shoulders as most people swept up in raids haven’t any prison file and are generally even residents and everlasting residents. He vowed that deporting folks would enhance the economic system regardless of a long time of research exhibiting the alternative. Trumpworld insists immigrants are destroying the US — by no means thoughts that the commander in chief is the son of a Scotswoman and is married to a Slovenian whereas vp JD Vance’s in-laws are from India.
The administration maintains unchecked migration is cultural suicide at the same time as cupboard members sport final names — Kennedy, Rubio, Bondi, Loeffler — as soon as seen by People of previous generations as synonymous with invading hordes.
That is the place Frank Sinatra is available in.
Over the Christmas weekend, White Home deputy chief of employees Stephen Miller posted on social media that his household watched a Christmas particular starring the Chairman of the Board and his fellow paisan, Dean Martin.
“Think about watching that and considering America wanted infinity migrants from the third world,” Miller sneered. It didn’t matter that the crooners had been proud youngsters of Italian immigrants who arrived throughout a time the place they had been as demonized as Venezuelans and Somalis at the moment are.
Take it from Sinatra himself.
In 1945 he launched “The Home I Stay In,” a brief movie wherein he tells a gaggle of boys chasing one in all their Jewish friends to embrace a various America. In 1991 as his Republican Occasion was launching an period of legal guidelines in California concentrating on unlawful immigrants, Sinatra penned a Fourth of July essay for The Instances opposing such hate.
“Who within the identify of God are these folks anyway, those who elevate themselves above others?” Sinatra wrote. “America is an immigrant nation. Possibly not you and me, however these whose love made our lives potential, or their mother and father or grandparents.”
As 2025 went from one hell month to a different, it actually felt like Trumpworld’s lies would loom over the land for good. However because the yr ends, it appears reality lastly is peeking by means of the storm clouds, just like the blue skies Sinatra sang about so fantastically.
Trump’s approval rankings have dropped enormously since his inauguration even amongst those that voted for him, along with his deportation catastrophe taking part in a job. Judges and juries are starting to swat away prices filed in opposition to folks like Ramos-Brito like they had been flies swarming round a dung pile. Below especial scrutiny is Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino, the general public face of Trump’s deportation floor sport.
In November, U.S. District Choose Sara L. Ellis dominated the federal authorities needed to cease utilizing extreme power in Chicago after months of brokers firing pepper balls and tear fuel on the slightest perceived insult. Her determination reasoned that Bovino’s sworn testimony a couple of Chicago below siege by pro-immigrant activists was “not credible” as a result of he offered “cute” solutions when he wasn’t “outright mendacity.”
Among the many victims of these lies: Scott Blackburn, who was arrested for allegedly assaulting Bovino throughout an immigration raid despite the fact that movies confirmed the migra man sort out Blackburn like they had been taking part in sandlot soccer, and Cole Sheridan, whom Bovino claimed injured his groin whereas arresting him throughout a protest; federal prosecutors shortly dropped all prices in opposition to Sheridan after they realized there was an absence of proof to again up Bovino’s story.
After which there’s Ramos-Brito, who needed to endure a federal trial that hinged on Bovino insisting he was responsible of assaulting a federal agent in Paramount. He shook his head in disgust after I instructed him about Bovino’s continued tall tales.
“Justice was served for me,” Ramos-Brito mentioned, “however not for others. I received fortunate.”
Brayan Ramos-Brito, 30, of Compton, was discovered not responsible of assaulting a federal agent throughout June’s immigration enforcement protests in Los Angeles County.
(Gary Coronado/For The Instances)
We spoke in entrance of the House Depot the place the June 7 protest occurred, the place Trump’s yr of immigration lies went into overdrive. The day laborers who used to assemble there for years weren’t round. The gate the place la migra and protesters confronted off was closed.
Ramos-Brito nonetheless drives down that stretch of Alondra Boulevard for his snacks from the Chevron station that stands a block away from the place his life endlessly was modified. It took him months to go public along with his story. Scars stay on his ribs, again and shoulders.
“There’s occasions when little moments come by means of my head,” he acknowledged.
What lastly satisfied him to talk up was take into consideration others on the market like him. He now realizes talking out in opposition to Trump’s lies is the one method to cease him for good.
“Whoever goes by means of the identical that I did, hold preventing,” Ramos-Brito mentioned softly. “They need to have a look at my expertise to offer them hope.”
