Category Archives: US immigration

US asylum app strands migrants and aids organised crime, rights group says

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CBP One app offers far too few appointments, meaning asylum seekers must wait or pay human trafficking groups, report reveals

A US government smartphone app that tightly limits asylum appointments at the US-Mexico border is stranding vulnerable migrants in Mexico and enriching organised crime groups, according to a new report from Human Rights Watch (HRW).

The report, which draws on interviews with more than 100 migrants, as well as officials and activists, documents how the CBP One app – which is all but mandatory for asylum seekers – offers 1,450 appointments a day, when arrivals at the border averaged 7,240 a day between May 2023 and January 2024.

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Mistrial in case of Arizona rancher accused of shooting migrant dead

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George Kelly, 75, charged with second-degree murder over death of Mexican Gabriel Cuen-Buitimea, 48, on his property last year

An Arizona judge declared a mistrial on Monday in the case of a rancher accused of fatally shooting a Mexican man on his property near the US-Mexico border.

George Kelly, 75, was charged with second-degree murder in the 30 January 2023 shooting of Gabriel Cuen-Buitimea, 48, who lived just south of the border in Nogales.

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US resumes deportation flights to Haiti despite continuing bloodshed

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Critics condemn ‘reckless and cruel’ expulsions and say deportees likely to be targeted by armed gangs who control much of country

More than 70 Haitians expelled from the United States have been flown back to Haiti on the first deportation flight since heavily armed gangs launched a bloody insurrection which has paralysed the capital and forced the prime minister from office.

The flight, which landed in the port city of Cap-Haïtien early on Thursday, was described as “inhumane” by human rights activists who warned that deportees would likely be targeted by the criminal factions who control most of the country.

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Trump boasts ‘We broke Roe v Wade’ as abortion dogs GOP election hopes

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Republican presumptive nominee struggles to articulate position on divisive issue after meeting with House speaker

Facing the press alongside the House speaker, fellow Republican Mike Johnson, Donald Trump bragged: “We broke Roe v Wade.”

The former president made the stark admission about his dominant role in attacks on abortion rights at the end of a week in which the rightwing Arizona state supreme court ruled that an 1864 law imposing a near-total ban could go back into effect.

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Trump and Mike Johnson push for redundant ban on non-citizens voting

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Planned bill to ban already illegal practice is latest Republican step to spread falsehoods about immigration and voter fraud

Donald Trump and the House speaker, Mike Johnson, plan to push for a bill to ban non-citizens from voting, the latest step by Republicans to falsely claim migrants are coming to the country and casting ballots.

Voting when a person is not eligible – for instance if they lack US citizenship – is already illegal under federal law. It is unclear what the bill Johnson and the former president will discuss in their Friday press conference at Mar-a-Lago will do to alter that. But it is one more way for the former president to focus on election security and to ding the Biden administration over the situation at the US-Mexico border, a key issue for likely Republican voters this November.

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Texas concedes law allowing judges to deport migrants may have gone ‘too far’

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Solicitor general says in appellate hearing that SB4, paused from going into effect, may have gone beyond limitations of state laws

The state of Texas has conceded that it may have gone “too far” in passing a law last year that made entering the state illegally a crime and allowing state judges to order undocumented people to be deported.

The admission that Texas’s SB4 may have gone beyond the limitations of state laws, which typically bow to federal law on immigration matters, came at a hearing on Wednesday before the fifth US circuit court of appeals.

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Judge questions US government claim it does not have to feed migrant children

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Los Angeles case revolves around question of whether people in makeshift camps along US-Mexico border are in legal custody

A federal judge has sharply questioned the Biden administration’s position that it is not responsible for housing and feeding migrant children while they wait in makeshift camps along the US-Mexico border.

Recent media reports have shed light on the harsh conditions at sites along the border, where people waiting for processing by US immigration authorities live under open skies or in tents or structures made of tree branches. The camps are often short on food, water and sanitation, relying on groups of volunteers to distribute aid and basic supplies.

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Texas troops clash with migrants over barbed-wire breach at US border

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Wire barrier installed under governor’s border security program breached as migrants say they were forcefully pushed back

A group of migrants clashed with Texas national guard troops over a breach of barbed wire fencing in El Paso on Thursday as they waited to turn themselves in to federal border agents – underscoring the power struggle between the state and federal government over immigration law enforcement.

Video posted on social media showed migrants dragging away a temporary concertina wire barrier which was installed as part of Texas governor Greg Abbott’s controversial Operation Lone Star publicly-funded state border security program.

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Schumer warns of making Israel support ‘partisan’ amid reports he stopped Netanyahu addressing Senate Democrats – live

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Senate majority leader reportedly rejects request from Israeli prime minister to address Senate Democratic caucus

Since being elected speaker of the House last year, the Republican Mike Johnson has emerged as one of Donald Trump’s most prominent defenders on Capitol Hill, and today is no exception – even when it comes to the former president’s recent comment that Jews who vote for Democrats “hate” Israel and their religion.

Asked about it at a press conference, Johnson said he understands where Trump is coming from:

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Texas immigration law: appeals court freezes order allowing prosecution of migrants

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Move comes hours after supreme court allowed strict law known as SB4 to take effect, giving state police powers to arrest migrants suspected of crossing the border illegally

A federal appeals court has issued an order that prevents Texas from arresting migrants suspected of entering the US illegally, hours after the supreme court allowed the strict new immigration law to take effect.

The decision by the 5th US circuit court of appeals comes weeks after a panel on the same court cleared the way for Texas to enforce the law, known as SB4, by putting a pause on a lower judge’s injunction.

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Arizona county fears ‘homelessness on steroids’ as migrant shelter funds end

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Additional federal funding for shelter has been caught in broader political battles about illegal migration and government spending

An Arizona migrant shelter that has housed thousands of asylum seekers plans to halt most operations in two weeks when funding from Washington runs out, a problem for towns along the border where officials fear a surge in homelessness and extra costs.

Arizona’s Pima county, which borders Mexico, has said that at the end of the month its contracts must stop with Tucson’s Casa Alitas shelter and services that transport migrants north from the border cities of Nogales, Douglas and Lukeville.

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DeSantis signs bills expanding prison sentences for undocumented migrants

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Measures target people convicted of driving without a license – which undocumented people can’t obtain – or committing felonies

Florida’s governor signed bills Friday that increase the prison and jail sentences for immigrants who are living in the United States illegally if they are convicted of driving without a license or committing felonies.

Ron DeSantis is a frequent critic of the Biden administration over its handling of the Mexican border, sending Florida law enforcement agents and national guard members to Texas. The Republican governor, who ended his attempt for his party’s presidential nomination last month, has also flown immigrants who entered Texas illegally to Massachusetts and California.

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Migrants mired in transit as Mexico becomes US’s immigration enforcer

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Detentions soar as critics say President Amlo willing to trade rights of migrants for political capital in Washington

Between border visits and rallies, Joe Biden and Donald Trump are duelling to control the narrative on immigration, placing the issue – and Mexico’s role in it – at the heart of the coming election.

In tasking Mexico with reducing arrivals at the border, the US has given its neighbour leverage over US political discussion. On the ground, this has meant many migrants find themselves stuck in Mexico, running a gauntlet of extortion and violence as they try to make it to the northern border.

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Biden says US needs fair tax code to ‘make this country great’ in speech on $7.3tn budget plan – live

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US president tells audience in New Hampshire: ‘I’m a capitalist. Make all the money you want. Just begin to pay your fair share in taxes’

Joe Biden is issuing a budget plan Monday aimed at getting voters’ attention: tax breaks for families, lower healthcare costs, smaller deficits and higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations.

Unlikely to pass the House and Senate to become law, the proposal for fiscal 2025 is an election-year blueprint about what the future could hold if Biden and enough of his fellow Democrats win in November. The president and his aides previewed parts of his budget going into last week’s State of the Union address, with plans to provide the fine print on Monday.

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Drowning deaths at US-Mexico border up 3,200% since Trump raised wall height – report

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Thirty-three people attempting to cross the border into San Diego died in the Pacific Ocean from 2020 to 2023, study shows

Thirty-three people attempting to cross the US border drowned in the Pacific Ocean near San Diego after the Trump administration nearly doubled the height of the walls along the southern border, a staggering increase from previous years.

The number of drownings rose by 3,200% from 2020 to 2023, compared to 2016 to 2019, when just one person drowned, according to a study published this week. By 2019 the Trump administration had elevated the barriers around San Diego from 17ft to 30ft.

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Biden calls for compromise while Trump goes full red meat at US-Mexico border

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Dueling border visits of 2024 contenders 300 miles apart shows that immigration has become a central issue in the White House campaign

It might be seen as the first US presidential debate of 2024. Two candidates and two lecterns but 300 miles – and a political universe – apart.

Joe Biden and Donald Trump spent Thursday at the US-Mexico border, a vivid display of how central the immigration issue has become to the election campaign. Since it is far from certain whether official presidential debates will happen this year, the duelling visits might be as close as it gets.

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Biden urges Trump to help him pass immigration deal as both visit US border

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President implores Republicans to ‘show a little spine’ and support bipartisan border and security bill as Trump speaks at Eagle Pass

Joe Biden and his all-but certain Republican challenger, Donald Trump, made dueling visits to Texas border towns on Thursday, a rare overlap that sets the stage for an election-season clash over immigration.

In Brownsville, along the Rio Grande on the border with Mexico, Biden implored Congressional Republicans to “show a little spine” and support a bipartisan border security deal. Earlier this month Republican lawmakers blocked legislation they had previously clamored for, after Trump expressed his opposition to the measure.

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Biden and Trump to visit US-Mexico border on same day

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Biden says he ‘didn’t know my good friend, apparently, is going’ as he plans Brownsville visit while Trump heads for Eagle Pass

Joe Biden and Donald Trump will both travel to the US border with Mexico on Thursday, dueling visits by the president and his probable opponent for re-election underlining the importance of immigration as an issue in the coming campaign.

Biden will visit Brownsville, Texas, in the Rio Grande valley, while his presidential predecessor will head for Eagle Pass, about 325 miles distant.

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White House could use federal law to control US-Mexico border crossings

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Biden administration considering using immigration law used by Trump after Republicans rejected a negotiated immigration bill

The White House is considering using provisions of federal immigration law repeatedly tapped by Donald Trump to unilaterally enact a sweeping crackdown at the southern border, according to three people familiar with the deliberations.

The administration, stymied by Republican lawmakers who rejected a negotiated border bill earlier this month, has been exploring options that Joe Biden could deploy on his own without congressional approval, multiple officials and others familiar with the talks said. But the plans are nowhere near finalized and it’s unclear how the administration would draft any such executive actions in a way that would survive the inevitable legal challenges. The officials and those familiar with the talks spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity to comment on private White House discussions.

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Heavy metals and E coli: raw sewage at US-Mexico border a ‘public health crisis’

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The Tijuana River flows through Mexico and empties off California, carrying pathogens and chemicals and threatening public health

Raw sewage and runoff in the Tijuana River is exposing communities at the US-Mexico border to an unusual and noxious brew of pathogens and toxic chemicals, according to a report released this week.

Billions of gallons of sewage flow through the river, which winds north from Mexico through California and empties into the Pacific Ocean, containing a mix of carcinogenic chemicals including arsenic, as well as viruses, bacteria and parasites, according to public health researchers at San Diego State University, who published the report.

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