Tag: illegal

Florida squatter victim launching website to assist other landlords with illegal occupants

A Florida landlord is launching a website to assist other property owners with squatters after she spent thousands of dollars to remove illegal residents from her own property.

“My goal is to drive state and federal laws to treat squatters as criminals and to expedite the review of fraudulent leases,” Patti Peeples, 61, told Fox News.

Earlier this year, Peeples and her business partner Dawn Tiura ejected two female squatters from their home after they moved in illegally for over a month and left thousands in damages.

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The website, PushOutSquatters.org will launch later this week and will intentionally go by the abbreviation “POS.”

“So many who responded to news articles used that abbreviation, so I went with the double entendres,” said Peeples, who is a retired entrepreneur with experience in marketing.

The website will be both informational and community-oriented, she said.

“The purpose of the website will be to present the risks associated with squatting, the rise in frequency and to offer resources for those attempting to get squatters out, including everything from security resources to legal resources on how to review state statutes,” Peeples said.

She added that other squatter victims will be able to share their stories on the website so others can learn from those experiences.

REALTY COMPANY: SQUATTERS MAKING LIFE MISERABLE FOR PROPERTY OWNERS, PHILADELPHIA OFFICIALS DON’T SEEM TO CARE

Peeples plans to also sell hats and t-shirts with the website’s logo featuring a stick figure kicking another stick figure out of a house.

“We will use the funds to lobby state legislators for better laws,” Peeples said.

Although Peeples successfully removed the two squatters from her Jacksonville, Florida, investment property, they illegally occupied it for 34 days and left behind $38,000 in damages. During the ordeal, Patti lost an interested buyer in the house, was physically pushed out of the house by the squatters and decided that she has had enough of working in real estate.

SQUATTER VICTIMS FED UP WITH BEING LANDLORDS AFTER FEELING WRONGED BY LEGAL SYSTEM

“This is my retirement, and so any sort of income that I was trusting to live off of for this year is diminished because of this act of stealing,” Peeples told Fox News. “That’s essentially what they’ve done – they’ve stolen my home from me.”

The squatters, who have a history of illegal occupancy, produced a fraudulent lease when police were called, allowing them to remain in the home until Peeples took them to court.

Peeples and Tiura were forced to pay $5,000 in legal fees to eject the squatters.

FLORIDA VICTIM OF SERIAL SQUATTER CALLS ON DESANTIS TO CRACK DOWN ON ILLEGAL HOME OCCUPATION

Peeples said that since her story became public, she’s seen a positive impact, including former President Trump mentioning squatters in Florida in a jab at Gov. Ron DeSantis.

“I’ve had hundreds of people send me messages on social media,” Peeples said, adding that the stories about her situation have been seen by millions of people.

“The publicity has also encouraged our local sheriff’s office to pay more attention to this and pursue criminal charges if they can find the squatters,” she added.

Click here to learn more about the squatters in Jacksonville, Florida.

Police union manager in California allegedly imported illegal opioids from India, Hong Kong, Singapore

The office manager for a Northern California police union allegedly imported illegal synthetic opioids from India and other countries and at least once used her work computer and address and the union’s UPS account to ship the drugs within the country, federal prosecutors said.

Joanne Marian Segovia, executive director of the San Jose Police Officers’ Association, was charged with attempting to unlawfully import valeryl fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, federal prosecutors said in a statement Wednesday. If convicted, she faces up to 20 years in prison.

Starting in 2015, Segovia had at least 61 drug shipments mailed to her San Jose home from India, Hong Kong, Hungary and Singapore with manifests that listed their contents as “wedding party favors,” “gift makeup,” “chocolate and sweets” and “food supplement,” according to a federal criminal complaint unsealed Tuesday.

FENTANYL OVERDOSES BECOME NO. 1 CAUSE OF DEATH AMONG US ADULTS, AGES 18-45: ‘A NATIONAL EMERGENCY’

It was not immediately known if Segovia, 64, has an attorney who can speak on her behalf.

Tom Saggau, a spokesperson for the police union in San Jose, said Segovia, a civilian, has worked for the union since 2003, planning funerals for officers who die in the line of duty, being the liaison between the department and the officers’ families and organizing office festivities and fundraisers.

He said that federal officials informed the union last Friday that Segovia was under investigation and that no one else at the union was involved or knew about Segovia’s alleged acts.

The revelation shocked her colleagues, Saggau said.

“We didn’t have any reason to suspect her,” he said, adding that the union’s board of directors has pledged to fully support the federal investigation.

Federal prosecutors said that in 2019, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers intercepted a parcel being sent to her home address that contained $5,000 worth of Tramadol, a synthetic opioid, and sent her a letter telling her they were seizing the pills. The next year, the CBP again intercepted a shipment of Tramadol valued at $700 and sent her a seizure letter, court records showed.

But federal officials didn’t start investigating Segovia until last year when investigators found her name and home address on the cellphone of a suspected drug dealer who is part of a network that ships controlled substances made in India to the San Francisco Bay Area, according to the complaint. That drug trafficking network has distributed hundreds of thousands of pills in 48 states, federal prosecutors said.

OPIOID DRUGS CAUSE MORE THAN HALF OF YOUNG CHILDREN’S POISONING DEATHS: NEW STUDY

Segovia used WhatsApp messaging service and her personal and office computers to order thousands of opioid tablets and other pills to her home and agreed to distribute the drugs elsewhere in the United States, prosecutors said.

On at least one occasion in 2021, Segovia shipped the illicit drugs to a North Carolina address by using the police union’s UPS account, prosecutors said. That address is linked to at least five illicit drug seizures, they said.

Investigators found hundreds of photographs in a WhatsApp chat on Segovai’s cellphone, including an image of the UPS shipping slip and another one of a computer screen showing a PayPal payment to an Indian name and Segovia’s police union business cards under it.

“Based on my training and experience, I know that shippers of controlled substances often send receipts and tracking numbers as proof that they in fact sent a package. I believe that the receipt provided by SEGOVIA was offered by her as proof that she sent a package to the North Carolina addressee,” David Vargas, a special agent for Homeland Security Investigation, wrote in the affidavit.

According to the complaint, Segovia continued to order controlled substances even after being interviewed by federal investigators in February. On March 13, federal agents seized a parcel in Kentucky, containing valeryl fentanyl, addressed to Segovia. The package allegedly originated from China three days earlier and declared its contents as a “clock,” prosecutors said.

Biden touts 'rule of law' in polarizing speech, as border is overrun with illegal migrants

President Biden, in a divisive speech taking aim at “MAGA Republicans” Thursday night, touted the importance of the “rule of law” — even as hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants hit the border each month, many of whom are released into the country.

Biden used the address, outside Independence Hall in Philadelphia, to launch attacks against President Trump and his supporters while declaring that “equality and democracy are under assault.” He also said that American democracy only works if the “rule of law” is respected and slammed those who he claimed did not respect it.

“MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution,” Biden said, flanked by Marines and with a deep-red background behind him. “They do not believe in the rule of law. They do not recognize the will of the people.”

“This is a nation that believes in the rule of law,” he said at another point in the speech. “We do not repudiate it.”

BIDEN SAYS ‘MAGA REPUBLICANS’ THREATEN DEMOCRACY AS HE AND DEMS CRANK UP ANTI-TRUMP RHETORIC AHEAD OF MIDTERMS

“American democracy only works if we choose to respect the rule of law and the institutions that were set up in this chamber behind me, only if we respect our legitimate political differences,” 

However, Biden spoke as an overwhelming and ongoing migrant crisis continues to ravage the border since he took office. Currently, around 200,000 illegal migrants hit the border each month. There have been more than two million migrant encounters this fiscal year alone, after a record-setting 1.7 million last fiscal year.

While some are expelled under the Title 42 public health order — which the Biden administration is seeking to end, but has so far been blocked by a federal court — most migrants are released into the U.S. ahead of a court hearing that can be more than a year away. Asylum hearings can take five to eight years to complete, and the vast majority are ultimately denied.

The Biden administration has stopped border wall construction, ended asylum agreements that would see illegal immigrants sent to closer Central American countries to claim asylum, and stopped the Migrant Protection Protocols — which kept migrants in Mexico for their asylum process.

MAYORKAS CLAIMS SOUTHERN BORDER ‘IS SECURE’ AS HISTORIC MIGRANT CRISIS RAGES

Meanwhile, the administration has been narrowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement priorities to just recent border crossers, aggravated felons and national security threats — meaning the vast majority of those in the country illegally are not targeted for arrest or deportation. As a result, arrests and deportations have plummeted since Biden took office. A court order recently ordered the administration to halt the narrowed priorities.

Critics have accused the administration of not enforcing immigration law, including laws that require that illegal immigrants be detained on entry to the U.S. The Biden administration has claimed its mass-release policies are in line with U.S. laws, including allowing those who turn up at the border to claim asylum — even those who have passed through multiple countries, or have even flown to the continent from Africa and the Middle East. It has also claimed the border is “secure.”

The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), which calls for lower levels of immigration, tore into Biden for his touting of the rule of law on Thursday evening.

“If ever there was an administration that does not respect the rule of law, it is this one,” FAIR President Dan Stein said in a statement. “There is no more glaring example of lawlessness than the Biden administration’s gutting of immigration laws and border enforcement. This administration is not just refusing to enforce nearly every immigration and border enforcement law on the books, the president’s Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, in a series of policy memos, has put it in writing. Moreover, the Biden administration is defying a federal court order to resume immigration enforcement.”

BORDER PATROL CHIEF SAYS BORDER CRISIS A RESULT OF BIDEN’S ‘NO CONSEQUENCES’ POLICY FOR ILLEGAL MIGRANTS

Stein accused the administration of “openly” refusing to remove illegal immigrants unless they are violent felons or terrorists.

“Time and again, when immigration laws are at odds with their own political objectives, our laws get chucked in the trash can,” he said. “That is the hallmark of an authoritarian dictatorship, not a constitutional republic.”

Meanwhile, former Trump-era acting Director of National Intelligence Director Richard Grenell contrasted Biden’s statements with support of jurisdictions which refuse to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement.

“Joe Biden talks about the rule of law but supports Sanctuary Cities,” he said.

Meanwhile, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, whose office this week revealed that the head of Border Patrol had testified that encounters increase when there are “no consequences” for illegal entry, also accused the Biden administration of flouting the law on the border.

That testimony came as part of a lawsuit that charges that the agencies under Biden’s direction are failing to follow established federal law, specifically the Immigration and Nationality Act, that requires officials to detain illegal aliens at the border until they are sent back to their country of citizenship.

“Not only are they completely ignoring public safety immigration laws to the detriment to the security of our nation, they are also building new programs that are unlawful to bring more people over here that are illegal,” she said on Fox Business. “This administration is absolutely no question sacrificing the safety of our nation for politics.”

Fox News’ Kelly Laco contributed to this report.

Missouri AG Schmitt says lifting Title 42 will unleash ‘tsunami’ of illegal immigration as states push back

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt says a “tsunami” of illegal immigration that will be unleashed by the Biden administration’s lifting of Title 42 will affect every state in the country as his state leads a key legal challenge to the move.

McConnell, Grassley demand AG Garland clarify reported plan to pay millions to illegal immigrants

FIRST ON FOX: Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell and Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Chuck Grassley on Thursday wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland, calling on the Justice Department to clarify its stance on reported plans to pay millions to illegal immigrants separated during the Trump administration.

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