Migrants moved from NYC to suburbs face perilous path to find work

NEWBURGH, N.Y. — When asylum-seekers cross the U.S. border with Mexico, many have a single priority — finding work. Or as one migrant put it: “Earning the green paper.”

But for the 100,000 migrants who have come to New York over the past year, they have been unable to be legally employed. The problem has created a standoff between the White House and New York leaders, leaving the migrants in the middle of a bureaucratic mess.

The fight has extended to the New York City suburbs where Mayor Eric Adams has bused about 1,600 migrants in recent months with the promise of work and a better life. But finding a job is not an easy task, and for those who do, the off-the-books labor can be rife with exploitation.

More than a dozen asylum-seekers who were moved from the city to Hudson Valley hotels said in interviews they have faced threats of deportation, wage theft and unsavory working conditions. The migrants — all of whom were granted anonymity because they fear retribution — said they get paid well below the minimum wage and sometimes don’t get paid at all.

“They don’t give you the opportunity for the permission to work, so you’re forced to take anything,” a 29-year-old Venezuelan man said in Spanish at the Ramada Hotel in Newburgh. The man said some jobs have paid him $100 for a 16-hour workday, roughly $6.25 an hour or half of the state’s minimum wage.

Adams and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, both Democrats, say the delay is creating a dangerous and untenable situation. They have blamed President Joe Biden, saying he’s the one person who can clear the way for the migrants to get working papers. But the White House has pointed the finger at Congress, which has so far been unwilling to act.

It’s one part of the growing migrant crisis that is splintering the Democratic Party and becoming a drag on Biden, with whom Adams has not spoken since last year. The mayor peppers the president with daily demands and is battling local leaders in court over their unwillingness to host asylum-seekers in their communities, despite the city paying for the hotel rooms.

The migrants said in interviews with POLITICO they had no idea how hard it would be to get work permits once they arrived in New York, often after harrowing journeys from their home countries.

Hochul said she speaks regularly with the White House, but she has yet to receive an answer on how to get migrants into the legal workforce more quickly.

“The number one answer to this crisis is work authorization, something I raised for a year now in concert with the mayor and pushing all the leverage points we can think of to try and get a change,” Hochul told reporters earlier this month.

On Thursday, she said a concern appears to be “that more people will come if they know they can receive legal work status sooner, maybe 30 days instead of six months.”

But, she added, they are coming anyway.

And by Adams sending the migrants to unwitting suburbs, mostly run by Republicans, the situation has created an ironic, intrastate fight. Adams faced a similar influx of asylum-seekers sent north by Republican governors in Texas and Florida.

Adams says the city is overrun by far more migrants than it has the capacity to shelter. He raised the prospect of erecting tents in Central Park, and his administration suggested that children could soon be sleeping on the streets. He said the city’s cost might ultimately reach $12 billion.

A Daily News cover this month, showing people sleeping on Manhattan sidewalks, included a headline that blared: “Biden to New York: Deal with it.”

Adams is warning it might take more than a year for them to get working papers and become self-sufficient.

“That's a long time for New Yorkers to have to carry this burden,” he said Wednesday night on CNN.

Outside the Crossroads Hotel in New York’s Hudson Valley, six male asylum-seekers last month were kicking around a soccer ball in the front parking lot. They smiled and laughed as they played, a brief respite belied by tired creases around their eyes.

The migrants traveled from West Africa, through Mexico, across the nation’s southern border and, ultimately, to New York City in search of economic opportunities and, for some, safety from political oppression.

One of the players at the Newburgh hotel, who requested anonymity, said his pay at a local bakery is inconsistent and often not the amount promised.

“I will work five or six days, and I don’t know when they are going to pay me. I know they are using me, but it’s OK,” he said. “I just need some money to support myself.”

A recent New York Times report detailed empty promises and false claims by a company contracted by the city to bus migrants elsewhere in the state. Employees for the firm claimed placement in the hotels would give asylum-seekers greater access to working papers. The claim hasn’t matched reality.

Migrants said they were told by caseworkers and hotel security they could see repercussions to their asylum applications if they talked to POLITICO. Those who were willing to speak detailed wage theft and labor violations.

The state Department of Labor has encouraged them to report mistreatment, but many said they are still fearful to come forward.

The agency this month issued a mere 35 “statements of interest” covering 100 workers for mistreatment that would help them avoid deportation. A spokesperson said the department is looking to improve the investigative process.

A major roadblock is the 180-day waiting period for an asylum application before work authorization can be applied for and approved by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Dadzie Kakra said he came to New York to make money to support his family. The financial and political unrest in Venezuela left both Kakra and many others with no choice but to leave.

“Why did we come here? We didn’t come here to throw shade at anyone. We just came here to work,” Kakra said in Spanish. “We came here looking for green money. That’s it; that's the truth. We just want a normal job, a job where they don’t demand I make a fool of myself or exploit me.”

The 29-year-old said the best job he has found is with a construction contractor who pays him $150 for 17-hour work days — a mere $8.80 an hour. The region’s minimum wage is $14.20 an hour. He is hoping to save money to send to his wife, daughter and family back in Venezuela.

“I work for that price, and I can afford to buy food and a few things for myself, but with the amount I’m making, I can’t live on my own,” he said in Spanish. “It’s not an amount I could get by with.”

The Biden administration claims change should come through congressional action, and it highlighted steps it has taken to help link people with work.

“Individuals who arrive lawfully in the United States under our expanded parole programs are eligible for work authorization,” a White House spokesperson said in a statement. “Our administration has used tools, including parole processes, for certain populations. But none of these administrative tools are a substitute for congressional action.

But Adams, Hochul and New York Democrats on Capitol Hill are pushing for other avenues — such as granting more individuals humanitarian parole and expanding the number of countries that qualify for Temporary Protected Status. Both options allow for expedited work authorization.

“While New York City will continue to lead, it’s time the state and federal government step up,” Adams said Wednesday.

There are options that could lead to working papers, such as a federal deferred action program to expedite the process. But migrant advocates said the program isn’t ideal because it requires asylum-seekers to participate in a type of law enforcement investigation. Additionally, the paperwork is in English and difficult to navigate without an immigration lawyer.

Many asylum-seekers are stuck, said Debra Lee, chief attorney for the Legal Aid Society of New York.

“The issue in New York City and other cities across the country is there are limited [nonprofit] service providers,” Lee said. “There just simply are not enough people available.”

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The Bidens plan to head to Maui ‘as soon as we can’ as death count rises from wildfires

President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden will travel to Maui, Hawaii, “as soon as we can,” he said Tuesday in the wake of the wildfires that raged through the island to become the country’s most lethal wildfire in a century.

“My wife Jill and I are going to travel to Hawaii as soon as we can. That's what I've been talking to the governor about. I don't want to get in the way,” Biden said while delivering remarks on the economy in Wisconsin.

The wildfires have left 96 people dead as of Monday since the fires began last week in the historic town of Lahaina on Maui island. The catastrophic blaze has led to mass evacuations and widespread power outages, impacting thousands.

The Maui blaze was 85 percent contained by Sunday night, according to officials. Hawaii Gov. Josh Green warned Monday that many more people could be found dead as search and rescue teams continue to inspect the area.

“We are prepared for many tragic stories,” Green told “CBS Mornings” in an interview that was aired Monday. "They will find 10 to 20 people per day, probably, until they finish. And it’s probably going to take 10 days. It’s impossible to guess, really.”

On Thursday, Biden approved a major disaster declaration for Hawaii in order to free up federal aid to support the island. Biden also had an extended phone call with Green last week, assuring him of his commitment to ensuring the state receives “everything it needs from the federal government.”

Kelly Garrity contributed to this report.

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Why the new charges against Trump are different

At the start of the week, Donald Trump faced 78 felony counts across three criminal prosecutions. Then, near midnight on Monday in Fulton County, Ga., District Attorney Fani Willis added a fourth case with 13 more.

In some ways, the new charges resemble the old. Like special counsel Jack Smith, Willis has accused Trump of orchestrating a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 presidential election. And like Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Willis has accused Trump of falsifying documents, albeit very different types of documents and for very different reasons.

Beyond the similarities, though, the Georgia case stands apart. In terms of the sheer scope of wrongdoing it alleges, the 98-page indictment sweeps far more broadly than any of the previous indictments against Trump. And for the first time, a panoply of high-ranking aides, attorneys and allies have been named as co-defendants alongside Trump.

“Trump and the other Defendants charged in this Indictment refused to accept that Trump lost, and they knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump,” the document says. “That conspiracy contained a common plan and purpose to commit two or more acts of racketeering activity in Fulton County, Georgia, elsewhere in the State of Georgia, and in other states.”

While the indictment lists a total of 41 felony counts, the 13 counts that apply to Trump fall into the following categories:

• One count of violating the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, commonly known as RICO.
• Six counts of making false statements and writings, filing false documents or conspiring to do so.
• Three counts of soliciting the “violation of oath” by a public officer.
• Two counts of conspiring to commit first-degree forgery.
• One count of conspiring to impersonate a public officer.

Those charges cover a range of alleged wrongdoing, including Trump’s efforts to pressure Georgia officials to undo the election results, his scheme to assemble false electors claiming to represent the state in the Electoral College, his submission of documents that contained lies about ballot fraud and his attempts to enlist the Justice Department to aid his pressure campaign.
Some of the charges entail automatic prison time under the Georgia criminal code. For instance, if convicted of conspiring to solicit a public official to violate the oath of office, Trump would face a minimum one-year mandatory prison sentence. (Willis alleges Trump committed that crime by pressuring the speaker of the Georgia House to call a special session to appoint fake electors.) The crime of first-degree forgery similarly carries a mandatory prison sentence of at least one year.

The prospect of mandatory prison time is a first among Trump’s criminal cases. In his other cases, some charges — like allegedly falsifying business records in his New York hush money case — are unlikely to result in any prison time for a first-time offender. Other, more serious charges — like Trump’s alleged violations of the Espionage Act and his alleged obstruction of justice in his federal case involving classified documents — typically result in significant prison sentences, but federal judges have discretion.

The gravest charge in the Georgia case is racketeering under the state’s RICO Act. In fact, that’s the only count in the indictment that is denoted on the court’s docket as a “serious felony.” (The other counts are all known simply as “felonies.”) Georgia law uses the “serious” designation to classify certain crimes that carry heavier penalties, in the same way that other states use “A” or “B” felony designations, according to Anthony Michael Kreis, an assistant professor of law at Georgia State University.

Although prison time is not automatic for a conviction under the state’s RICO Act (a judge can decide to dole out only a fine), if the judge does decide to impose a prison sentence, it must be at least five years.

John Acevedo, a law professor at Emory University, said he found the racketeering charge notable because it is “so notoriously difficult to prove.” The RICO count requires Willis to prove not only a conspiracy but also an ongoing enterprise, Acevedo said.

The indictment says that Trump and his co-defendants “constituted a criminal organization whose members and associates engaged in various related criminal activities including, but not limited to, false statements and writings, impersonating a public officer, forgery, filing false documents, influencing witnesses, computer theft, computer trespass, computer invasion of privacy, conspiracy to defraud the state, acts involving theft, and perjury.”

It adds that, “The enterprise constituted an ongoing organization whose members and associates functioned as a continuing unit for a common purpose of achieving the objectives of the enterprise.”

Acevedo speculated that Willis’ willingness to bring such a charge likely has to do with an effort to pressure some of Trump’s 18 co-defendants to flip on him, because the heavier penalties the charge carries impose a significant threat.

“I think it does reveal a bit of her strategy,” he said.

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The GOP Senate candidate whose Trump ambassador stint is coming back to haunt him

Republican Senate hopeful Jeffrey Gunter is learning a painful lesson: What happens in Reykjavik doesn’t always stay in Reykjavik.

Gunter is touting his 18-month tenure as former President Donald Trump's ambassador to Iceland in his Nevada primary bid. But his stint abroad also earned him plenty of enemies who don’t want to see a Senator Gunter. That points to a tough road ahead as he seeks the GOP nomination to take on Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) in a state where the party hasn’t won a Senate race in 11 years.

National Republicans were wary of Gunter’s candidacy to begin with and warned him not to enter the Senate primary, according to a person familiar with those conversations granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive topic. Among their reasons for trying to dissuade Gunter: his apparent lack of a voting record in Nevada and his Democratic voting registration in California.

Even the State Department stint that Gunter plugged in launching his campaign last week, describing himself as an “America First” diplomat, is a potential liability. A 2021 report by the State Department’s Office of the Inspector General found that Gunter had created a “threatening and intimidating environment” at the embassy, and that his successors had to work to rebuild U.S.-Iceland relations after Gunter's tenure.

Bolstering those allegations, four Trump-era State Department officials said in interviews that the dermatologist performed his ambassadorial job poorly and tried to work from his California home during the pandemic, a critical period for U.S. diplomacy. Eventually, those four officials said, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo personally instructed Gunter to return to Iceland as the coronavirus raged — citing the moment as further evidence that Gunter is not fit to be a senator.

"When Jeff served as United States ambassador, he completely failed to execute his duties in some of the most important times for the country. He was in Los Angeles, not at his post, when he needed to be there to lead his organization,” said one former senior State Department official during the Trump administration, who was granted anonymity to discuss Gunter's job performance given the sensitivity of the topic.

“That says all you need to know about his ability to lead and whether he ought to be a United States senator or not," that official added.

The cold reception for Gunter is just the latest sign that Republicans are moving aggressively to filter out unpredictable candidates in critical states that will determine the Senate majority next fall. Republican leaders are pulling for Army veteran Sam Brown to win the nomination in Nevada amid a crowded field of upstarts that includes former state Rep. Jim Marchant, former lieutenant governor candidate Tony Grady, a couple of other lesser-known candidates — and now, Gunter.

“It is no surprise that Mitch McConnell and the D.C. elites would be opposing a strong pro-Trump America First fighter like myself,” Gunter said in a statement. “Like President Donald J. Trump, I am a puppet of no one, and I will never stop fighting for America and the people of Nevada."

The scathing inspector general's report cited Gunter's "frequent failure to respect diplomatic protocol or to coordinate with the Icelandic Government" as severe enough to prompt the State Department to operate around him.

Gunter spokesperson Erica Knight, asked about his alleged poor performance on the job, disputed that Pompeo ever had to take action against the former ambassador: “Pompeo did not order Ambassador Gunter anywhere — U.S. ambassadors answer to the President of the United States.”

“He is a physician, he and his embassy staff worked remotely during the pandemic onset and thanks to his leadership the team had zero U.S. embassy infections and zero U.S. embassy deaths,” the spokesperson added.

Pompeo declined to comment on the Gunter spokesperson's response.

The former ambassador to Iceland seems to be vying for a Trump endorsement that could reshape the race. Gunter also has apparent deep pockets given his history of GOP political donations. A photo of him next to a beaming Trump leads his website, a previous version of which once boasted of getting a retweet from Trump.

Even so, Gunter will have to raise significant money to catch up to Brown, whose primary bid also has backing from the National Republican Senatorial Committee, NRSC Chair Steve Daines (R-Mont.) and GOP Conference Chair John Barrasso of Wyoming.

Though Nevada is challenging ground for Republicans, Nevada GOP Gov. Joe Lombardo did oust a Democratic incumbent last year — a sign that with the right candidate and circumstances, Republicans can win in the fast-growing and diverse state.

A Trump spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment about Gunter. Lombardo has not endorsed anyone in the Senate race and is focused on his policy agenda, according to a person close to him.

Gunter has not voted from his Nevada address and was a registered Democrat with an active California voting record for years, according to public records and documents obtained by POLITICO. His business is based in California, where he was registered to vote in early 2021, according to public records.

In recent decades, Gunter has also been a prodigious donor to GOP causes. He sent $100,000 to Trump Victory, a joint fundraising committee, in 2016 and showered Republican Senate candidates with thousands of dollars. Most of Gunter's donations list a California address, though some of his recent donations list his home state as Nevada, where he is also registered to vote.

In other words, despite his past California voter registration as a Democrat, Gunter’s been a reliable GOP supporter — often a prerequisite for an ambassadorship.

Gunter claimed that, while he was ambassador, his “old voter residence registration was fraudulently changed to my medical clinic” and also claimed that his broader registration status in California was fraudulently altered.

“I have never supported or given a single penny to Democrats and have been a staunch supporter of President Donald J. Trump and his brilliant America First policies since Day One,” Gunter said. “Anyone peddling this bogus narrative is complicit in covering up voter fraud.”

Knight, the spokesperson for Gunter, cited “many inaccuracies” in public documentation of his voting history documentation and added that Gunter was “fully vetted by a Republican Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2018 and confirmed unanimously by the entire U.S. Senate."

A spokesperson for the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk said it could not immediately comment on claims by Gunter and his spokesperson.

The post of U.S. ambassador to Iceland is not typically high-profile, but Gunter made national headlines in 2020 after CBS reported on his demands for a firearm on the job, his refusal to return to Iceland during the pandemic and alleged poor working conditions at the American embassy.

Gunter further rankled career diplomats by calling the coronavirus the “China virus,” mimicking Trump’s attacks.

"Every time you heard the word ‘Iceland,' there was a collective groan,” said the second official who worked at the State Department when Gunter was ambassador. “This guy, I think, confused being ambassador with being a Maharaja. You're here to represent the country, but you don't need 24/7 security.”

Pompeo's department, according to all four former officials, did not anticipate having to police the ambassador to a nation with less than a half-million people at the height of the pandemic. What’s more, the officials said, Gunter’s tenure made managing diplomacy with the island nation even more challenging.

"To have the secretary call you to tell you to do your job? I’ve never heard of that," said the third former State Department official.

Christopher Cadelago contributed to this report.

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Newsom sidesteps Washington by inking climate pacts with China, Australia

The most effective U.S. negotiator on international climate cooperation right now isn't in Washington. It's California Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose new pacts with China and other major polluters are cementing the Golden State's role as a climate policy power broker.

U.S. climate envoy John Kerry emerged from negotiations last month with Xie Zhenhua, his counterpart in Beijing, with no new agreement on climate change. Kerry touted the mere resumption of talks as a victory — underscoring the communications breakdown between the world’s two biggest polluters as tensions flare over trade, Taiwan, Russia and human rights issues.

Enter the world’s fifth-largest economy, which has long been using its firm political consensus on climate change as a platform to broker international agreements with foreign allies and adversaries alike. California's role as a de facto shadow government on climate diplomacy is only becoming more important as geopolitical tensions rise and Congress remains riven over China's role in the green transition, officials say.

“We recognize that our federal leaders are balancing a lot of factors and priorities, and we want to support them,” said California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot in an interview. “California is a strong cornerstone of climate leadership that's stable and driving forward.”

State Transportation Secretary Toks Omishakin, with Newsom standing by, signed an agreement earlier this month with the Chinese province of Hainan to work together on phasing out fossil fuel vehicles, improving energy efficiency in buildings and enforcing air pollution and greenhouse gas rules, among other areas. The memo came on the heels of another agreement Newsom signed in April renewing a Jerry Brown-era partnership with China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment to encourage policy and academic exchanges.

The administration is also inking a pact on climate and energy with Australia on Tuesday. The deal, to be signed in Sacramento with Australian ambassador Kevin Rudd, focuses on clean energy and emissions reductions, with a special emphasis on bolstering resilience to wildfire, heat and drought, which both Australia and California have suffered increasingly from in recent years.  

Beyond the formal language of the agreements, administration and academic officials are holding meetings, touring agency facilities and exchanging technical details about how to enforce regulations.

“These are more than just ceremonial meetings,” said Mary Nichols, the former chair of the California Air Resources Board, in an interview. “These are planned sessions where people will spend a day, a week, or even more doing a deep dive into some specific issue that they're working on.”

Leveraging longtime ties

Newsom has been eager to pick up the bipartisan climate diplomacy mantle from previous administrations. Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) championed regional climate action through the United Nations, and his successor, Gov. Jerry Brown (D), signed hundreds of subnational officials to his pledge to keep temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius. Brown also famously traveled to China to tout state-level action after President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the U.N. Paris climate agreement.

Key players on the California side include:

• Lauren Sanchez, Newsom's climate adviser and a former senior adviser to Kerry
• Yana Garcia, secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency, who's been working with Mexico on coordinating clean-truck and recycling rules
• Crowfoot, who has been discussing flood resilience with Australia and wildfire management with Canada 

Sanchez said California often has just as much to learn from its international partners as it has to share. Hainan “has an even more aggressive zero-emissions vehicle mandate than we do," she said. "There’s a real opportunity for us to learn about how they’re thinking about incentive structures and regulations, and there’s obviously a lot of in-country manufacturing over in China."

Academics are also playing key roles, leveraging longstanding ties that stretch across administrations.

Yunshi Wang, director of UC Davis' China Center for Energy and Transportation, first got to know Beijing party official Feng Fei in 2013 when he brought Tom Cackette, a former Air Resources Board deputy executive officer, to China to talk about the state's zero-emission vehicle mandate. Fei later became Hainan's party secretary, paving the way for the recent agreement.

"Beijing was wrapped in soupy air," Wang said. “He saw the benefits of those collaborations and the good part of the policy coming out of California."

Much of the diplomacy is also conducted through the California-China Climate Institute, a think tank that Brown established at UC Berkeley after leaving office in 2019 that often partners with Tsinghua University in Beijing.

“We've, on a continuing basis, been working on various kinds of papers with Chinese scholars that get into the specifics about various climate policies," said Nichols, who now serves as vice chair of the Berkeley institute. "That's not something that the State Department can do right now or is doing."

Treading carefully

That's not to say California is immune to geopolitical winds. Wang said he made sure not to include any mention of investment or technology exchange as he was helping draft the Hainan agreement. “Right now we are trying to avoid that,” said Wang. “These are thorny issues for Washington.”

Subnational players like California also have inherent limitations. "As national governments find themselves more and more paralyzed, it's not a bad idea to have states and cities form more concrete relationships," said Orville Schell, director of the Asia Society's Center on U.S.-China relations. "But they have to be mindful — you know, you don't want to stray into the microchip world. You don't want to stray into areas that have implications for national security, because more and more people are beginning to wonder if competition with China could actually turn into a military conflict.”

California has learned from its years of trying to forge ties with other governments. Despite repeated attempts to link greenhouse gas markets, it's only managed to sign up one trading partner — the Canadian province of Quebec. It's focusing more now on traditional trade ties, with Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis recently leading a delegation to Japan of some 80 renewable energy and transportation industry executives.

State officials still see their diplomatic work as one of the key pillars of their push for carbon neutrality.

"The formal linkages are not working that well yet," said Dan Sperling, an Air Resources Board member and founding director of UC Davis' Institute of Transportation Studies. "So mostly what we're doing is adopting aggressive requirements on industry — cars, trucks, buses, fuels — and hoping they're replicated around the world."

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Maui residents had moments to make life-or-death choices

The smoke was starting to blot out the sun. Winds were howling, and heat bore down as flames licked the trees on the horizon. The power had been out all day, so Mike Cicchino thought he’d drive to the hardware store for a generator. He turned off his street, and in an instant, his Lahaina neighborhood seemed to spiral into a war zone.

“When I turned that corner, I see pandemonium,” he said. “I see people running and grabbing their babies and screaming and jumping in their cars.”

It was around 3:30 p.m. Tuesday when Cicchino and his neighbors began a desperate fight for their lives. They had just moments to make decisions that would determine whether they lived or died in a race against the flames — a harrowing, narrow window of time in one of the most horrifying and lethal natural disasters the country has seen in years.

There were no sirens, no one with bullhorns, no one to tell anyone what to do: They were on their own, with their families and neighbors, to choose whether to stay or to run, and where to run to — through smoke so thick it blinded them, flames closing in from every direction, cars exploding, toppled power lines and uprooted trees, fire whipping through the wind and raining down.

Authorities confirmed that at least 96 people died — already the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than 100 years — and they expect that number to rise.

Just 10 minutes before Cicchino made that turn away from his street, Maui fire officials had issued an ominous warning. The Lahaina brush fire had sparked that morning, but authorities reported it was contained. Now, officials said, erratic wind, challenging terrain and flying embers made it hard to predict the fire’s path and speed. It could be a mile away, Fire Assistant Chief Jeff Giesea said, “but in a minute or two, it can be at your house.”

Cicchino did a U-turn, ran into his house and told his wife they needed to leave: “We need to go! We need to get out of here now!”

They ran to the car with five dogs and called police, and a dispatcher said to follow the traffic. Access to the main highway — the only road leading in and out of Lahaina — was cut off by barricades set up by authorities. The roadblocks forced Cicchino and the line of cars onto Front Street.

A few blocks away, Kehau Kaauwai said the wind was so intense it tore the roof from her neighbor’s home. It felt like tornado after tornado was slicing down her street.

“It roared,” she said. “It sounded like an airplane landing on our street.”

Within moments, she said, the smoke that had been blocks away suddenly engulfed them. It darkened from gray to black, day seemed to turn to night.

Kaauwai couldn’t even see buildings anymore. Something was exploding; it sounded like fireworks. She ran inside. She couldn’t think — she just grabbed her dog and some clothes, never imagining she would not see her house or anything in it ever again.

Around 4 p.m., she got into her car. Traffic crawled, people were dragging uprooted trees out of the road with their bare hands. Debris whipped in the wind and banged on the car. Danger seemed to come from every direction.

Kaauwai would have driven to Front Street, but a stranger walking by told her to go the other way. She wishes now she could thank him, because he might have saved her life.

On gridlocked Front Street, people were panicking, crying, screaming, honking.

Bill Wyland grabbed his computer, passport and Social Security card and stuffed them into a backpack. He got on his Harley Davidson and drove on the sidewalk.

“I could feel the heat burning in my back. I could pretty much feel the hair is burning off the back of my neck,” said Wyland, who owns an art gallery on the street.

At one point, he passed a man on a bicycle madly pedaling for his life. Some were abandoning cars and fleeing on foot. The smoke was so thick, so toxic, some said they vomited.

“It’s something you’d seen a in a ‘Twilight Zone’ horror movie or something,” Wyland said.

The street was so jammed, he thinks if he’d taken his car instead, he would have died or been forced into the ocean. The people sitting in their cars saw black smoke ahead.

“We’re all driving into a death trap,” Mike Cicchino thought. He told his wife: “We need to jump out of this car, abandon the car, and we need to run for our lives.”

They got the dogs out. But it was impossible to know which way to run.

“Behind us, straight ahead, beside us, everywhere was on fire,” Cicchino said. It had been less than 15 minutes since he left his house, and he thought it was the end. He called his mother, his brother, his daughter to tell them he loved them.

The black smoke was so thick they could see only the white dogs, not the three dark ones, and they lost them.

Propane tanks from a catering van exploded.

“It was like a war,” Cicchino said. They could tell how close the fire was coming based how far away the cars sounded when they erupted.

“The cars sounded like bombs going off,” Donnie Roxx said. “It was dark, it was 4 o’clock in the afternoon, and it looked like midnight.”

A seawall separates the town from the ocean, and Roxx realized he and his neighbors were confronting a horrific decision: stay on burning land or go to the water. The sea was churning and treacherous even for strong swimmers, as the wind kicked up the waves.

“Do you want to get burned or take your chances and drown?” he asked himself. He jumped over the wall.

So did dozens of others, including Mike Cicchino and his wife.

Others came to realize they needed to flee — but not because officials told them. Some heard from friends and neighbors, others just had a feeling.

“There was no warning. There was absolutely none,” said Lynn Robinson. “Nobody came around. We didn’t see a fire truck or anybody.”

She left her apartment near Front Street around 4:30. About a mile away, Lana Vierra’s boyfriend stopped by her home and said he’d seen the fire raging toward them.

“He told me straight, ‘People are going to die in this town; you gotta get out,’” she recalled. So she did.

Anne Landon was chatting with others in her senior apartment complex. She said she felt a sudden blast of hot air that must have been more than 100 degrees. She ran to her unit and grabbed her purse and her 15-pound dog, La Vida.

“It’s time to get out! Let’s get out!” she shouted to neighbors as she rushed to her car.

She’d already packed a rolling duffle bag in her car, just in case. She didn’t know where to go. She stopped and asked an officer, who didn’t know what to tell her, except to wish to her luck.

Debris was flying through the air. She ran into people she barely knew but recognized. They told her to come with them to their home. They got stuck in a dead stop in the traffic, so they abandoned the car. She put the dog on top of her rolling suitcase and dragged it down Front Street, to the beach.

Downtown’s historic wooden buildings were burning. The splintering lumber broke apart and flew through the wind, still flaming.

“The sky was black, and the wind was blowing, and the embers were going over us. We didn’t know if we’d have to jump in the water,” she said. “I was terrified, absolutely horrified — so, so scared.”

But a path through the smoke cleared for just a moment, and police came shouting for them to go north. They ran.

Many others remained trapped on the beach.

Mike Cicchino and his wife took off their shirts, dunked them in water and tried to cover their faces. Cicchino ran up and down the seawall, shouting his lost dogs’ names. He saw dead bodies slumped next to the wall. “Help me,” people screamed. Elderly and disabled people couldn’t make it over the wall on their own. Some were badly burned, and Cicchino lifted as many as he could. He ran until he vomited from the smoke, his eyes nearly swollen shut.

For the next five or six hours, they moved back and forth between sea and shore. They crouched behind the wall, trying to get as low as they could. When flames fell from the sky, they dunked themselves into the water. Their surviving dogs’ fur was singed.

It was so surreal, Cicchino thought he must be dreaming.

“My mind kept going back to: This has got to be just a nightmare. This cannot be real. This cannot actually be happening,” he said. “But then you realize you’re burning. I’m feeling pain, and I don’t feel pain in nightmares.”

The U.S. Coast Guard’s first notification about the fires was when the search and rescue command center in Honolulu received reports of people in the water near Lahaina at 5:45 p.m., said Capt. Aja Kirksy, commander of Coast Guard Sector Honolulu.

The boats were hard to see because of the smoke, but Cicchino and others used cellphones to flash lights at the vessels, guiding them in to rescue some, mostly children. Fire trucks eventually came and drove them out, through the flames.

Those who survived are haunted by what they endured.

Cicchino jolts awake at night from dreams of dead people, dead dogs. Two of his dogs remain missing. He agonizes over the decisions he made: Could he have saved more people? Could he have saved the dogs?

Anne Landon was practically catatonic. She imagines her neighbors who didn’t make it out and wonders if she might have been able to help them. She was covered in ash but couldn’t bring herself to shower.

Her dog wouldn’t eat for two days.

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Prosecuting ousted president of Niger would be 'unjustified,' U.S. says

The State Department said on Monday that it would be “unwarranted and unjustified” if Niger’s military junta moved forward with its plan to prosecute ousted President Mohamed Bazoum on treason charges over his dealings with foreign leaders and organizations.

Military authorities who have taken over the nation, in the Sahel region of Africa, “gathered the necessary evidence” to prosecute Bazoum “for high treason and undermining the internal and external security of Niger,” junta spokesperson Col. Amadou Abdramane said in a statement read on state television on Sunday night, according to Reuters.

“This action is completely unwarranted and unjustified, and, candidly, it will not contribute to a peaceful resolution of this crisis,” State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel told reporters on Monday. “It is a further affront, in our opinion, to democracy and justice and to the respect of the rule of law, and a threat like this underscores the urgency of respecting the constitutional order in Niger.”

The latest threat against the detained president, less than three weeks after the coup, follows the junta’s warning last week that it would kill Bazoum if the Economic Community of West African States tried to reinstate him via military force.

As the West and neighboring countries worry about the fate of Niger, the State Department didn’t rule out supporting the use of military force if needed.

“ECOWAS has been … very clear publicly that military intervention should be a last resort, something that we agree with, and we continue to be focused on finding a diplomatic solution,” Patel said.

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