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Most of New York’s City Council is up in arms after a council employee, Rafael Andres Rubio Bohorquez, found himself detained by ICE last week for violating his visa status. The Trump administration contends that Rubio Bohorquez overstayed his visa, after Trump rescinded Biden-era protections for Venezuelan nationals; in addition, an assault charge was filed against Rubio Borquez, though it is unclear if that charge was later dropped. City officials said he passed a background check and had permission to be in the United States at the time of his arrest. One of the few council members who feels ICE was entirely in the right, however, is Vickie Paladino (R-19TH). Paladino appeared on 710 WOR’s Mendte in the Morning program to explain her apoplexy at why the majority of the City Council overwhelmingly is behind a man who should have been sent back to Venezuela a couple of years ago.
Paladino told host Larry Mendte she doesn’t feel sympathy for Rubio Bohorque, but rather outrage that the council looked the other way in hiring him in the first place: “Well, government overreach and going to war with the President isn’t going to help us any… When Trump came into office, he revoked all of these visas that this guy [had]; he had one of those visas, and an assault charge… I’m not sure if the assault charge was dropped or not, but here’s the question: how did we in city government hire somebody like this? Now, we do what’s called, a process called onboarding. Onboarding is a full day- a full day. How did this guy get his job? How? And now he was picked up, and he was taken in by ICE, and look, this is the way it goes.”
Paladino suggested the Rubio Bohorque situation should serve as a reminder to Republicans not to be complacent when Election Day and the midterm election rolls around: “What they’re trying to do is deflect. Well, I hope to God it doesn’t work. We need to win the ‘26 midterms, and Hochul needs to be replaced this November. Stop deflecting- and that’s what we allowed the left to do, and we cannot allow this any longer.”
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