Maine Gov. Janet Mills to Receive Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award
Maine Gov. Janet Mills will receive an award from the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights. RFK Human Rights announced Thursday that Mills is one of three recipients of its 42nd annual Human Rights Award. The other two are Elizabeth Oyer, a former U.S. Department of Justice pardon attorney, and immigration reform activist Jeanette Vizguerra. The organization said Mills is receiving the RFK Human Rights Award because her administration successfully sued the federal government to restore funding for Maine school nutrition programs that serve 172,000 school children.
Immigrant Activist, Currently Detained in Aurora, Wins Human Rights Award
Denver immigrant activist Jeanette Vizguerra has won the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award while incarcerated in an Aurora detention center, the Washington D.C.-based human rights organization announced on May 15. Vizguerra immigrated without documentation to Denver from Mexico City in 1997. She’s best known for her attempt to avoid deportation by taking sanctuary from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in a Denver church in 2017, during President Donald Trump’s first term. A judge eventually granted a two-year stay against her deportation orders and allowed her to remain in the U.S. after an 86-day standoff with ICE at the Denver First Unitarian Church. Her fight against Trump and ICE attracted national attention. While she was still in sanctuary at the church, Vizguerra was named one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People of 2017.
‘It Pains Our Souls’: Venezuelans React to First Video of Relatives in Salvadoran Prison
Sitting on a couch in her home in Maracay, Venezuela, Mirelis Cacique López watches her son Francisco Javier García Cacique on her cell phone in the first video released of a group of Venezuelans sent by the United States to El Salvador’s maximum-security prison Cecot. “Among the boys, I recognized my son,” Cacique López said to CNN. “We thank God for allowing us to see our relatives, even in those conditions,” she added, insisting that she will continue to pray for their release.
Under Trump, Student Journalism is ‘Trial by Fire’
Student journalists do real journalism, but college reporting is often also considered a training ground of sorts — an opportunity for students to learn how to report. But over the past few months, student journalists across the country have found themselves on the front lines of some of the most headline-grabbing stories as the Trump administration cuts federal grants to universities that don’t bend to its will and immigration officials detain scores of international students.