16 AUGUST 9, 2018 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
Pol urges fed judge to halt Maspeth man’s deportation
BY JENNA BAGCAL
JBAGCAL@RIDGEWOODTIMES.COM
@JENNA_BAGCAL
Three months aft er the arrest of
Ecuadorian immigrant Edisson
Barros, a Queens councilman
is calling on the law to halt Barros’
deportation.
On Wednesday, Aug. 8, Councilman
Francisco Moya wrote a letter to Federal
Immigration Judge Mirlande Tadal,
urging her to put Barros’ deportation
proceedings on hold and release him
to his family. Barros is currently in
custody at the Hudson Correctional
Facility in Kearny, New Jersey.
“Mr. Barros came to the United
States not to be a burden on taxpayers
or take advantage of any system,”
Moya wrote. “He came here without
malice or corrupt intent. Mr. Barros
came here out of a sense of duty to
his family, to be a father to his U.S.-
born daughters, and to provide them
with financial and emotional support
— as would any father capable
of doing so.”
The cab driver and father, who
lives in Maspeth with his family,
was arrested in May according to a
GoFundMe campaign organized by
his 20-year-old daughter Paola. The
young woman said that her father
was trying to stop an irresponsible
driver from running over the family
dog when the driver became upset
and got the NYPD involved. Barros
was then arrested for “public disorder”
and taken into ICE custody.
Paolo added that since her father’s
detainment, she has had to become
the breadwinner for the family
while attending CUNY Baruch College
for finance and investments.
The GoFundMe has earned $2,630
toward its $100,000 goal.
Moya, who is the only Ecuadorian
American in the City Council and
was the first Ecuadorian American
elected to public office in the United
States, said that Barros’ case holds
personal sentiment for him. In the
letter, he mentioned that August is
Ecuadorian Heritage month and that
Queens residents recently attended
the Ecuadorian Independence Day
parade.
“It strikes me that the Ecuadorians
and immigrants from across
the world not only celebrate their
heritage and the freedom of their
home countries on their respective
independence days but also the communities
and they’ve cultivated in
their adoptive nations. Those days
are celebrations of perseverance and
of character forged in the crucible of
difficult times,” the councilman said.
Paola said that her father has been
suffering from diabetes symptoms
while in Hudson and has not been
provided with medical attention.
She also said that he has not received
glasses to account for his loss of vision.
But ICE spokesperson Yong Yow
said that the agency “takes very seriously
the health, safety and welfare of
those in our care.”
According to the Young Progressives
of America Facebook page, the
activist group held a rally in front of
Hudson Correctional Facility on Aug.
8 to demand Barros’ release.
Photo via GoFundMe/Paola Barros
Edisson Barros is pictured with his daughter Paola at her high school
graduation.
Severe storm causes fl ooding, power outages, lightning strikes
BY RYAN KELLEY
RKELLEY@RIDGEWOODTIMES.COM
TWITTER @R_KELLEY6
The severe thunderstorm that
ripped through Queens on Aug.
7 left flooded streets, power
outages and three people struck by
lightning in its wake.
In Glendale, an old problem resurfaced
when the underpass on Cooper
Avenue near 71st Avenue fl ooded, shutting
down traffi c and submerging a car
in the process. Local resident Angelica
Hill, who claimed to be the sister of
the driver of the car, said in a post on
Facebook that “the sewer cap popped
off ” under the pressure of the heavy
rainfall.
Hill added that her uncle and two
police offi cers rushed to put the sewer
cap back on and get the driver and his
girlfriend to safety.
The underpass severely flooded
back in 2007 shutting down traffi c for
several days, and again in 2012 while it
was being reconstructed. Both fl oods
were triggered by severe thunderstorms
that quickly dumped several
inches of rain on the area in a short
span of time.
Community Board 5 Chair Vincent
Arcuri explained that excessive
runoff from sewers in the surrounding
streets likely caused the Cooper
Avenue sewer to become overwhelmed.
There is a pump station nearby, but it
shuts itself off to avoid burning out
when the workload becomes too great,
Arcuri said.
The chairman also pointed out that
signifi cant fl ooding occurred nearby
on 76th Street between 77th Avenue
and 78th Avenue, affecting every
house on the block.
According to multiple reports,
two men were playing soccer in
Flushing Meadows-Corona Park at
approximately 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday
night when the lightning struck. The
two were reportedly taken to Elmhurst
Hospital Center where one of the
men was in critical condition and the
other sustained non-life-threatening
injuries.
Just before 8 p.m., reports of another
lightning strike victim surfaced.
According to FDNY offi cials, a single
victim was struck near 155th Street
and Baisley Boulevard in Jamaica. The
victim sustained non-life-threatening
injuries and was transported to Jamaica
Hospital Center.
The storm came faster than people
could prepare for, and unfortunately
that meant the National Night Out
Against Crime celebrations throughout
the borough were cut short. In
Middle Village, approximately 20
minutes aft er three NYPD helicopters
landed on the baseball fi elds at
Juniper Valley Park, the sudden torrential
downpour and dangerously
close lightning sent hundreds of
people running for shelter.
Councilman Robert Holden later
confi rmed on Facebook that approximately
1,800 homes in the Middle
Village area lost power during the
storm.
According to ConEdison spokesperson
Allan Drury, there were approximately
2,800 outages in Queens
as of 7 p.m. on Aug. 7. The areas with
the most outages included Richmond
Hill, Maspeth, Jamaica and Flushing.
By midnight, power had been restored
to most customers, with about
480 outages remaining at that time.
Many more people took to social
media to post photos and videos of
the storm as well, including a video
that revealed a rapid fl ow of water
on Queens Boulevard and another
showing several cloud-to-ground
lightning bolts.
Photo by Matthew Whittington
The fl ooded Cooper Avenue underpass in Glendale on Aug. 7.
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