Category Archives: US immigration

Activist with far-right ties fronts Marco Rubio-linked anti-immigration effort

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Nate Hochman recorded several videos for America 2100, a thinktank linked to the Republican Florida senator

The rightwing activist Nate Hochman, who was fired last year by the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, for employing neo-Nazi imagery in a campaign video, is now the face of a Marco Rubio-linked thinktank’s efforts to spread anti-immigrant panic from Ohio to Pennsylvania.

Videos featuring Hochman recorded in Charleroi, Pennsylvania, have been boosted on X by a range of rightwing figures including the platform’s owner, the tech billionaire Elon Musk.

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Ohio city’s mayor issues emergency order over false migrant rumors

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Springfield mayor Rob Rue says the order will allow city officials to ‘acquire resources to address potential threats’

The mayor of Springfield, Ohio, has issued an emergency proclamation following the continued rise in public safety threats over false rightwing rumors about the city’s migrant communities.

On Thursday, Rob Rue released a statement, saying: “Ensuring the safety of Springfield’s residents is our top priority.” He added: “We are addressing these threats with the seriousness they warrant and are taking immediate steps to ensure the security of both our community and our employees. Our commitment to preventing harm is unwavering.”

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JD Vance defends pet-eating remarks: ‘The media has a responsibility to fact-check’

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Republican VP nominee claims at Wisconsin rally that constituents told him ‘they’d seen something in Springfield’

JD Vance defended his comments about Haitian immigrants eating pets during a Tuesday rally, saying that “the media has a responsibility to fact-check” stories – not him.

The rally in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, came two days after the Ohio senator told CNN host Dana Bash it was OK “to create stories” to draw attention to issues his constituents care about, regarding inflammatory and unfounded claims that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, had eaten residents’ pets.

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Harris targets Trump for falsehoods on abortion and immigration in fiery debate

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Presidential candidates meet for first time in contentious face-off as moderators fact-check Trump’s statements

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump sparred on Tuesday in a contentious presidential debate that repeatedly went off the rails, as Trump pursued bizarre and often falsehood-ridden tangents about crowd sizes, immigration policy and abortion access.

The Philadelphia debate marked arguably the most significant opportunity for both Harris and Trump since Joe Biden withdrew from the presidential race in July, and the event began cordially enough. Harris crossed over to Trump’s podium to shake his hand and introduce herself, an acknowledgement that the two presidential nominees had never met face to face before Tuesday night.

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Rally sizes, abortion and eating cats: the Trump and Harris debate – podcast

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Kamala Harris defends policy stances and shares plan for office in first major interview

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In sit-down with CNN’s Dana Bash, vice-president defends shifts on policy issues and her support for Biden

Kamala Harris sat for her first interview as the Democratic presidential nominee with CNN’s Dana Bash alongside her running mate, Tim Walz, on Thursday, and defended her shifts on certain policy issues over the years and her support for Joe Biden.

In the interview, which was taped in Savannah, Georgia, earlier on Thursday, the vice-president said her highest priority upon taking office would be to “support and strengthen the middle class” through policies including increasing the child tax credit, curtailing price gouging on everyday goods and increasing access to affordable housing – all policies that she has announced since she started campaigning for the presidency.

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Republicans accuse Kamala Harris of flip-flopping on border wall policy

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Vice-president once called the border wall ‘un-American’ but now is trying to revive an immigration deal that funds it

Republicans have accused Kamala Harris of a policy flip-flop after she embraced an immigration crackdown that would involve expanding the controversial US southern border wall, which she once called “un-American” and “a medieval vanity project”.

Harris committed to reviving a bipartisan immigration deal that collapsed in the Senate earlier year at last week’s Democratic national convention.

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Migrant crossings have plunged after Biden’s asylum ban. But top Democrats are asking: at what price?

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Congress members are saying asylum seekers are ‘forced to wait in danger’ as advocates try to get them legal protection

In early June, Ofelia Arrellano said a gang in Mexico City threatened to kidnap her younger son if she didn’t pay a $160 monthly fee for keeping her toy store afloat.

Arellano, 37, and her two sons gathered enough money and fled. She feared the gangs’ reach if she stayed in Mexico, so they went north, towards the US, she said.

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Donald Trump claims to ‘know nothing’ about Project 2025

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Critics point out political roadmap for a potential second term created by ‘more than 20 officials Trump appointed’

Donald Trump is trying to claim he has “nothing to do” with Project 2025, a political roadmap created by people close to him for his potential second term.

The project, which is led by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative thinktank, seeks to crack down on various issues including immigration, reproductive rights, environmental protections and LGBTQ+ rights. It also aims to replace federal employees with Trump loyalists across the government.

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US expels more than 100 Chinese migrants in rare mass deportation

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Department of Homeland Security says it plans more such ‘large charter flights’, sparking concerns for safety of migrants escaping poverty or repression

The US has sent back 116 Chinese migrants in the first such “large charter flight” in five years, the Department of Homeland Security has said.

“We will continue to enforce our immigration laws and remove individuals without a legal basis to remain in the United States,” homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement.

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Panama to shut down Darién Gap route in deal that will see US pay to repatriate migrants

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New president José Raúl Mulino has vowed to close the route through which thousands of migrants travel to the US every year

The US will cover the costs of repatriating migrants who enter Panama illegally, under a deal agreed with the Central American country’s new president who has vowed to shut down the treacherous Darién Gap used by people travelling north to the United States.

In his first address as president, José Raúl Mulino promised to seek international assistance to find solutions to what he described as a costly “humanitarian and environmental crisis”.

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US-Mexico border crossings fall to three-year low after Biden’s executive order

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About 84,000 people crossed into the US in June, the lowest monthly total since Biden assumed office in January 2021

Undocumented crossings at the US’s southern border have fallen to a three-year low, marking the lowest in Joe Biden’s presidency just a short time after he signed a controversial executive order limiting immigration there in June.

The latest data from the federal Customs and Border Patrol obtained by CBS News is the most recent since Biden signed his executive order – and comes as the president is accused of failing to address concerns about the amount of people crossing into the US without permission.

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Some immigrants celebrate Biden’s extension of legal status while others left out

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Hundreds of thousands of immigrants married to US nationals can now exit ‘the shadows’ while others remain stuck in limbo

Hundreds of thousands of immigrants had reason to rejoice when Joe Biden unveiled a highly expansive plan to extend legal status to spouses of US citizens but, inevitably, some were left out.

Claudia Zúniga, 35, was married in 2017, 10 years after her husband came to the United States. He moved to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, after they wed, knowing that, by law, he had to live outside the US for years to gain legal status. “Our lives took a 180-degree turn,” she said.

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Biden pledges citizenship pathway for spouses and children of US citizens

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President touts ‘commonsense fix’ that would provide relief for more than half a million ‘mixed-status’ families

Joe Biden on Tuesday announced an expansive new plan to provide a pathway to citizenship for undocumented spouses of US citizens, calling it a “commonsense fix” that would provide relief to more than half a million “mixed-status” families in the country.

The move comes as the Democratic president tries to strike a balance before the 5 November election: confronting rising public concern over the unprecedented levels of migration at the southern border, while appeasing progressive Democrats and Hispanic leaders furious over Biden’s aggressive asylum crackdown, which they likened to Trump-era policies.

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Judge blocks Iowa law allowing police to charge people facing deportation

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Controversial law, due to go into effect on 1 July, is unconstitutional and cannot override federal rules, judge says

A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked an Iowa law that allowed law enforcement in the state to file criminal charges against people with outstanding deportation orders or who previously had been denied entry to the US.

US district court judge Stephen Locher issued a preliminary injunction because he said the Department of Justice and civil rights groups who filed suit against the state were likely to succeed in their argument that federal immigration law pre-empted the law approved this spring by Iowa legislators.

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Immigration rights groups sue Biden administration over asylum directive

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Advocates say president’s order restricting asylum claims differs little from Trump move blocked by courts

A coalition of immigrant advocacy groups sued the Biden administration on Wednesday over President Joe Biden’s recent directive that in effect halts asylum claims at the southern border, saying it differs little from a similar move during the Trump administration that was blocked by the courts.

The lawsuit – filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and others on behalf of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center and Raices – is the first test of the legality of Biden’s sweeping crackdown on the border, which came after months of internal White House deliberations and is designed in part to deflect political attacks against the president on his handling of immigration.

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Mayorkas insists immigration order not at odds with Biden’s campaign promise

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Homeland security head also defends timing of president’s border action as measure faces criticism from both parties

The US homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, defended both the timing and substance of Joe Biden’s new executive order to restrict immigration at the southern border, as the president faces criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike over the measure.

The order, issued on Tuesday, tells officials to shut down asylum requests once the average number of encounters between legal ports of entry reaches 2,500 or more. If the number of encounters falls to 1,500 or fewer for seven consecutive days, the border would reopen two weeks later.

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At least four people die crossing US-Mexico border amid brutal heatwave

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El Paso, Texas, saw temperatures of 106F, with border patrol identifying ‘heatstroke and dehydration’ as cause of death

At least four people have died crossing the US-Mexico border near El Paso, Texas, amid the searing heatwave gripping the south-west.

Temperatures in El Paso peaked at 106F (41C) on Thursday, and some 34 million people – from the southern tip of Texas across Arizona and up into California and Nevada – were under heat alerts.

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Biden’s migrant order is recipe for chaos at US border: ‘It will only cause suffering’

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With high levels of people seeking asylum, and after failed attempts to pass reforms, Biden has presented his most aggressive restrictions yet

Joe Biden on Tuesday signed an aggressive new immigration order suspending asylum rights, signalling that “securing the border” was a central tenet of his re-election bid.

At the southern US border, the policy is set to cause chaos and hardship for those seeking the protection of the United States.

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Asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border worry about their next move: ‘We cannot return’

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People at the border reel after hearing about Biden’s order and consider the CBP One app, where they can go and what’s next

Angel Ramos Girón was searching for a gap to breach the coils of concertina wire standing between him and the huge US fence near gate 36.

The port of entry divides the US from Ciudad Juárez in Mexico, where he stood on Tuesday afternoon looking towards El Paso, its American sister city in Texas.

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Democrats decry Biden executive order turning away some asylum seekers

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US representatives Nanette Barragán, Judy Chu and Raúl Grijalva say order guts legal rights, while ACLU threatens to sue

Progressive Democrats and immigration advocates have shared their outrage after Biden signed an executive order on Tuesday that would turn away some asylum seekers.

Biden’s order will temporarily shut down the US-Mexico border to asylum seekers attempting to enter the country legally when authorities have determined that the border is “overwhelmed”.

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