4 November 27 - December 3, 2025 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2008 miaminewtimes.com MIAMI NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | FILM | ART | STAGE | NIGHT+DAY | METRO | RIPTIDE | LETTERS | CONTENTS | ▼ HIALEAH GET DIS MIAMI SUBURB RANKED AMONG WORST PLACES TO CELEBRATE THANKSGIVING. BY NAOMI FEINSTEIN I f you plan to celebrate Thanksgiving in Hialeah, you may want to reconsider. According to a new study by personal finance company WalletHub, Hialeah is one of the worst places nationwide to go for Thanksgiving this year. Of the 100 largest U.S. cities included, the Miami-Dade County suburb was ranked the second-worst, beating out only Stockton, California. As for the best cities to celebrate all the Thanksgiving festiv- ities, San Antonio came in first, followed by Atlanta, Virginia Beach, Virginia, Dallas, and Scottsdale, Arizona. “The best cities for celebrating Thanksgiv- ing all have an abundance of high-quality res- taurants and places to buy festive decorations, and their residents get very ex- cited for the holiday based on their Google search history,” WalletHub analyst Chris Lupo said in a news release. “Other features make individual cities stand out. For example, Atlanta has a fantastic track record for on- time flights, and Virginia Beach has surpris- ingly affordable accommodations.” To compile the rankings, WalletHub com- pared the 100 most populous U.S. cities across five dimensions: Thanksgiving celebrations and traditions, affordability, safety and accessi- bility, “giving thanks,” and the Thanksgiving weather forecast. The dimensions are com- prised of interesting weighted factors, includ- ing pumpkin patches per capita, holiday decoration shops per capita, cost of Thanksgiv- ing dinner, traffic congestion, share of delayed flights near Thanksgiving, volunteer opportu- nities per Capita, and the temperature on Thanksgiving versus the average temperature. The study uses data from various sources, including the U.S. Census Bureau, the Coun- cil for Community and Economic Research, the FBI, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and the Bureau of Transpor- tation Statistics. What really hurt Hialeah’s ranking was its perceived lack of celebrations and traditions, as well as its affordability. It ranked last in af- fordability and third from last in celebrations. Evidently, Hialeah doesn’t have a high number of pumpkin patches per capita, a high Google search interest for Thanksgiving, or a high number of holiday decoration shops per Cap- ita. The affordability measure is made up of the cost of Thanksgiving dinner, the number of affordable restaurants with at least four-and-a- half stars, and the lowest price for three-star hotel rooms during Thanksgiving week. Miami, which was tied in first for the most number of pumpkin patches per Capita, was the highest-ranked city in Florida. Here is where all Florida cities included in the study stood in the rankings: Miami: No. 20 Tampa: No. 29 Orlando: No. 30 Jacksonville: No. 72 St. Petersburg: No. 81 Hialeah: No. 99 [email protected] | RIPTIDE | GET MORE NEWS & COMMENTARY AT MIAMINEWTIMES.COM/NEWS WalletHub doesn’t think Hialeah is a great place to visit for Thanksgiving. Photo by Felix Mizioznikov/Adobe Stock ▼ WASHINGTON, D.C. GET DIS, PART 2 FOX NEWS HOST LIKENS MARCO RUBIO TO “YOUR MEXICAN FRIEND.” BY ALEX DELUCA U .S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is many things, depending on whom you ask: a loyal Trump ally, a “traitor” to im- migrants, vice president JD Vance’s BFF, and a longtime UFO believer. But one thing he is not — despite what a Fox News host suggested this week — is Mexican. During a November 18 episode of the roundta- ble Fox News show The Five, conservative political commentator and host Jesse Watters was de- scribing members of President Donald Trump’s “crew of guys” — some of the key figures in his cabinet — when he said Rubio was “like your Mexi- can friend that works a lot, but is really funny.” Rubio, 54, was born and raised in Miami to Cuban parents. A constant figure in right-wing politics who earned a zero out of 100 on the Human Rights Campaign’s Congressional Scorecard in 2022 thanks to his stalwart anti-LBGTQ and anti- choice voting record, Rubio served for nearly a decade as a Republican state legislator before being elected to U.S. Congress in 2010. Despite his history of being relentlessly mocked by Trump (remember “little Marco”?), the president nominated Rubio for Secretary of State in November 2024, and the Senate con- firmed him in January 2025. People online were quick to fact-check and dunk on Watters’ comment about Rubio. And naturally, Rubio caught a few strays too. “Rubio is neither funny nor Mexican,” one person wrote in a post on X (formerly known as Twitter). “The fact that these idiots think Rubio is like your ‘funny Mexican friend’ tells me that they’ve never had a Mexican friend in their life,” another wrote. “Rubio must really feel like a valued member of the team today,” a third quipped. During the same segment, Watters offered similarly colorful descriptions of other Trump ad- ministration officials. “Bobby is the guy you give stuff to see if he will yak,” he said, referring to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “Pete’s the guy that likes to blow stuff up,” he continued, referring to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has ordered strikes killing dozens of people on boats in international waters over the past few months. And then Watters added: ”Rubio is like your Mexican friend that works a lot, but is really funny. J.D. Vance is like the poor kid who is, like, really smart,” he said, referring to the vice presi- dent’s upbringing detailed in his memoir, Hill- billy Elegy. [email protected] ▼ MIAMI–DADE UNSOLVED MYSTERY MIAMI-DADE PUBLIC SCHOOLS SEE SHARP DROP IN NEW IMMIGRANT STUDENTS. BY ALEX DELUCA S ince returning to the White House, President Donald Trump’s aggres- sive immigration policies have touched nearly every part of American life — reshaping workplaces, neighborhoods, homes, and schools alike. But while classrooms across the United States have felt the effects from the begin- ning of Trump’s second term, new data shows just how far-reaching those effects have been. As students’ families have been de- ported or voluntarily returned to their home countries under Trump’s sweeping immigration crackdown, schools nation- wide have seen massive drops in enroll- ment among immigrant students, according to the Associated Press. In Miami-Dade County Public Schools — the country’s third-largest public school district, which educates thousands of migrant students — roughly 2,550 students from another country have enrolled so far this school year, down from nearly 14,000 the previous year and more than 20,000 the year before that. In Palm Beach County public schools, enrollment has reportedly fallen by more than 6,000 students this year. A spokesperson for Broward County Public Schools tells New Times that while 6,439 foreign-born students were Rubio served for nearly a decade as a Republican state legislator before being elected to U.S. Congress in 2010. New Times photo-illustration. Source images: Hector Vivas/Getty Images (Rubio in Mexico), koya979/Adobe Stock (sombrero & moustache) >> p6
