President says there is a ‘good likelihood’ he will close border this week if Mexico does not stop immigrants from reaching US
US consumers would run out of avocados in three weeks if Donald Trump makes good on his threat to close down the US–Mexico border.
Trump said on Friday that there was a “very good likelihood” he would close the border this week if Mexico did not stop immigrants from reaching the United States.
Continue reading...The Trump administration reiterated on Sunday the president’s threat to close the border with Mexico, regardless of potentially severe consequences for the US economy.
Related: Under the bridge: migrants held in El Paso tell of dust, cold and hunger
Continue reading...Deep in the deep Rio Grande Valley, plans for president Trump’s wall would cut through towns and communities. In Madero, families fear the loss of their livelihood but vow to resist
Rey Anzaldua walks the path, through a pluvial afternoon on the Rio Grande reach opposite Mexico, towards the little church where he has worshipped “since I was five years old”– the lovely chapel of La Lomita, built in 1865 on a Spanish land grant of 1767. It is a jewel: candle smoke and the musky scent of whitewashed stone wrapping the Virgin of Guadalupe icon and offerings of flowers and corn.
Rey’s family has been here since the 1750s. His extended family “had three Spanish land grants between 16,000 and 18,000 acres along the Rio Grande river and the bridge between,” Rey said. “We don’t have much of that now.”
Continue reading...El Paso officials, aid workers and churches are scrambling to find shelter and legal counsel for a surge of Central American migrants
US authorities’ failure to keep up with a steep increase in Central American families seeking asylum at the US-Mexico border has left El Paso aid workers, churches and city government scrambling to respond.
After a sudden surge in arrivals, migrants have been crowded into hotels, churches and even held under a bridge behind a chain-link fence and razor wire while their asylum claims are processed.
Continue reading...Brazil president endorses hardline US immigration policy, saying ‘Vast majority of … immigrants do not have good intentions’
Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro has endorsed Donald Trump’s immigration agenda on the eve of their first meeting at the White House, saying he supports a wall on the US-Mexico border and that most immigrants to the United States wish to do harm.
Bolsonaro, a far-right congressman who rode to the presidency with a brash, anti-establishment campaign modeled on Trump’s 2016 run, has pledged a new era of pro-American policy in the southern hemisphere’s second-largest country.
Continue reading...Court rules 5-4 that authorities can detain immigrants awaiting deportation anytime after they have completed prison terms
The US supreme court on Tuesday endorsed US government authority to detain immigrants awaiting deportation at any time – potentially even years – after they have completed prison terms for criminal convictions, handing Donald Trump a victory as he pursues hardline immigration policies.
The court ruled 5-4, with its conservative justices in the majority and its liberal justices dissenting, that federal authorities could pick up such immigrants and place them into indefinite detention at any time, not just immediately after they finish their prison sentences.
Continue reading...As investigators close in, the president invokes the support of the military, police and vigilantes. This is a perilous moment
What does a megalomaniacal president of the United States do when he’s cornered? We’ll soon find out.
Related: 'It's a small group of people': Trump again denies white nationalism is rising threat
Continue reading...Carrie Gibson has written an exhaustive corrective to historians who seek to whitewash a story of settlement and conflict
The subtitle of Carrie Gibson’s book is The Epic and Forgotten Story of Hispanic North America. El Norte lives up to it.
Related: These Truths review: Jill Lepore's Lincolnian American history
Continue reading...Donald Trump will be making a significant request for border wall funds and seeking money to stand up his “Space Force” as a new branch of the military in the White House budget being released next week, an administration official said on Saturday.
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Continue reading...February was the busiest month since April 2008 – but is the government equipped to respond to an influx of families?
The US Department of Homeland Security announced this week that February was the busiest month for apprehensions at the US-Mexico border since April 2008, a staggering increase driven by Central American families.
Related: Inside America's biggest facility for migrant teens
Continue reading...Experts say officials have failed to acknowledge violence and instability in Central America and say system of ‘metering’ is not working
A staggering increase in the number of families apprehended at the US-Mexico border in February has highlighted the Trump administration’s failure to respond to the rise in Central Americans seeking protection in the US.
In February, 66,450 people were apprehended at the US-Mexico border by Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the agency announced on Tuesday – 17,800 more than were apprehended in January and double the number who were apprehended in February last year.
Continue reading...At least four Republicans say they will defy president’s move on the Mexican border designed to fund his wall
Donald Trump’s declaration of an emergency on the Mexican border will be rejected by the Senate, the most senior Republican in the US upper chamber has admitted.
The Democratic-controlled House has already voted to reject the national emergency declaration. A rejection in the Republican-controlled Senate would send a powerful signal that Trump’s control of his own party may be slipping.
Continue reading...Move follows intense campaign by refugee advocates for all children sent to the island by the Australian government to be taken off
The last four children living in Australian government-run offshore processing on Nauru have now left the island, amid a group of 19 people flown to the US for resettlement.
The group includes a number of Iranians, according to refugee advocates, contradicting persistent suspicions that Donald Trump’s travel ban on six nationalities was blocking refugees from the resettlement scheme.
Continue reading...Allegations ranged from adult staff members having relationships with minors to forcible touching, HHS documents show
Almost 5,000 complaints of sexual abuse and harassment of migrant children in US custody have been filed over the past four years, according to government documents released this week. The allegations range from adult staff members having relationships with minors, and the showing of pornographic videos, to forcible touching.
According to Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) documents released on Tuesday on Capitol Hill by the Florida Democratic representative Ted Deutch’s office, the reports date back to October 2015, during the Obama administration. However, most of the sexual abuse and harassment reported occurred since Donald Trump took office.
Continue reading...Court documents reveal stunning scheme used to trap 161 foreign nationals; Ice maintains the students knew the school was fake
The University of Farmington website described a college that would prepare students to succeed in an “ever-globalizing economy.” Students would show up at campus wearing backpacks and asking questions about classes. The US government listed Farmington as eligible to enroll foreign students. The school president, whose LinkedIn page is still online, sent emails to students describing his institution as “a nationally accredited institution authorized to enroll international students.”
But it was all a sham to snare immigrants.
Continue reading...Lawmakers’ move, planned for Friday, sets up clash over presidential powers and immigration but is likely to fail
House Democrats will file a resolution Friday aimed at blocking the national emergency declaration that Donald Trump has issued to help finance his wall along the Southwest border, teeing up a clash over billions of dollars, immigration policy and the constitution’s separation of powers.
Though the effort seems almost certain to ultimately fall short – perhaps to a Trump veto – the resulting votes will let Democrats take a defiant stance against Trump that is sure to please liberal voters. They will also put some Republicans from swing districts and states in a difficult spot.
Continue reading...Though Trump himself suggested there is no real emergency, courts are unlikely to second-guess a presidents’ broad leeway
Many legal analysts who watched Donald Trump declare a national emergency over immigration on Friday thought the president had weak legal grounds for doing so. In particular, many thought Trump hurt his own case by admitting, right there in the White House Rose Garden: “I didn’t need to do this, but I’d rather do it much faster.”
“This quote should be the first sentence of the first paragraph of every complaint filed this afternoon,” tweeted George Conway, a top Washington lawyer and the husband of Trump aide Kellyanne Conway.
Continue reading...Coalition led by California accuses the president of ‘unilaterally robbing taxpayer funds’
A coalition of 16 US states led by California has launched legal action against Donald Trump’s administration over his decision to declare a national emergency in order to fund a wall along the Mexico border.
The lawsuit was filed on Monday in the US district court for the northern district of California after Trump invoked emergency powers on Friday when Congress declined his request for $5.7bn to help create his signature policy promise.
Continue reading...US president’s latest ploy is the product of an immature, egotistic mind, and is based on a lie
The phrase “national emergency” conjures up images of riots in the streets and burning cities, a disease pandemic killing millions, or an inter-planetary invasion by little green men from Mars.
Donald Trump’s national emergency, over his thwarted plans to build a border wall with Mexico, is prompted by none of these horrors. According to him, the safety and wellbeing of the world’s richest, most powerful country is threatened with utter destruction by penniless Guatemalans.
Continue reading...The Atlanta-based rapper 21 Savage did not talk about his British citizenship before because he didn’t want to get deported.
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