Category Archives: US immigration

Texas sends another busload of migrants to Kamala Harris’s home

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About 50 mainly Venezuelan migrants including a baby deposited unannounced at Naval Observatory in Washington

About 50 migrants, including a one-month-old baby, have been sent in a bus from Texas to the Washington DC residence of Vice-President Kamala Harris, in the latest move by Republican-led states to transfer migrants unannounced across the country.

The bus let off the migrants, who are believed to be mostly Venezuelan, outside the Naval Observatory, the traditional home of US vice-presidents, on Saturday morning.

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Australian teen strip-searched and held in US jail for 10 days after being denied common visa waiver

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Cameron Carter, 19, who had never travelled on a plane before, was left unable to contact his family throughout ordeal

An Australian teenager who travelled to the US for a job interview was strip-searched and held in a federal prison for 10 days, including eight confined to his cell, after he was deemed ineligible for a common holiday travel program.

The 19-year-old, who had never travelled on a plane before, was denied contact with his family in Australia throughout the ordeal. He was supposed to be sent back to Australia after two days, but was held for another eight so he could go before a judge, after an immigration officer said he had resisted returning to Australia.

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Eight killed and dozens rescued from river at hazardous US-Mexico border crossing

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Days of heavy rain caused dangerous currents in the Rio Grande in an area where people frequently cross into Texas

At least eight people were found dead in the Rio Grande while attempting a hazardous crossing in Texas, officials said on Friday.

The discovery was made by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Mexican officials on Thursday while responding to a large number of people attempting to migrate across the river near the city of Eagle Pass.

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Biden administration ends Trump-era ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy

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Homeland security says it ended policy requiring asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico for hearings hours after judge lifted an order

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said that it has ended a Trump-era policy requiring asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico for hearings in US immigration court, hours after a judge lifted an order, in effect since December, that the so-called Remain in Mexico rule be reinstated.

The timing had been in doubt since the US supreme court ruled on 30 June that the Biden administration could end the policy.

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US supreme court rules against Biden in key immigration case

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Justices decline to freeze lower court order that blocked officials from changing deportation guidance from Trump era

The supreme court will not allow the Biden administration to implement an immigration policy that prioritizes deportation of people arriving in the US illegally who pose the greatest public safety risk.

The court’s order late on Thursday leaves the policy frozen nationwide for now. The vote was 5-4, with conservative Amy Coney Barrett joining liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and newcomer to the bench Ketanji Brown Jackson in saying they would have allowed the Biden administration to put in place the guidance.

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US national guard soldier’s death marks at least eighth tied to border security mission

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The controversial Operation Lone Star, launched in March 2021, is under federal investigation for possible civil rights violations

A Texas national guard member assigned to a border security mission helmed by the state’s governor, Greg Abbott, died this week at his unit’s hotel, leaving him as the latest of several soldiers to die while deployed on the controversial operation.

Alex Rios Rodriguez, a 52-year-old sergeant, suffered a medical emergency from which first responders were unable to revive him while he was at his quarters in McAllen, Texas, said a news release Friday issued by officials with the agency that runs the state’s national guard.

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‘Have you recently had an abortion?’ Australian transiting through US questioned then deported

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Madolline Gourley says she was on her way to Canada for a holiday when US immigration officials intervened

An Australian woman who planned to house-sit in Canada during a holiday has said she was detained, fingerprinted, interrogated about her abortion history and quickly deported during a stopover in the US.

Madolline Gourley, a Brisbane resident, says she was treated like a criminal during her transit through Los Angeles on 30 June, where she was detained at the border due to suspicions about her intention to house- and cat-sit in exchange for accommodation while holidaying in Canada.

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Supreme court decisions: court deals blow on climate but Biden wins immigration case – live

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In its second and final decision of the day, the Supreme Court on Thursday said Biden can terminate a controversial Trump-era immigration policy, known as Remain in Mexico. The ruling affirms a president’s broad power to set the nation’s immigration policy.

The ruling concludes the most consequential supreme court term in recent memory.

The case, which was backed by a host of other Republican-led states including Texas and Kentucky, was highly unusual in that it was based upon the Clean Power Plan, an Obama-era strategy to cut emissions from coal-fired power plants that never came into effect. The Biden administration sought to have the case dismissed as baseless given the plan was dropped and has not been resurrected.

Not only was this case about a regulation that does not exist, that never took effect, and which would have imposed obligations on the energy sector that it would have met regardless. It also involves two legal doctrines that are not mentioned in the constitution, and that most scholars agree have no basis in any federal statute.

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Biden can end Trump’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ program, supreme court rules

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Ruling by 5-4 allows administration to terminate policy that forced asylum seekers to return to Mexico while claims are considered

The supreme court has issued a ruling that will allow the Biden administration to end a Trump-era immigration program forcing asylum seekers attempting to enter the US at the southern border to return to Mexico while their claims are considered.

Soon after taking office, Biden had sought to completely end the program known informally as “Remain in Mexico” and formally as the Migrant Protection Protocols.

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Giuliani associate Lev Parnas handed 20 months in prison for campaign finance fraud – as it happened

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• It was a mixed Tuesday for Donald Trump-backed candidates in Republican primary elections around the country. Colorado voters largely rejected most Trump-supporting candidates in Tuesday’s GOP primaries, although Lauren Boebert, the extremist Colorado Republican congresswoman, won her bid for relection.

• In Illinois, Mary Miller, who had been criticized after she declared the Supreme Court’s abortion decision as a “victory for white life” – a spokesman said she had mixed up her words – won in after she was backed by Trump. Darren Bailey, who was also endorsed by Trump, won the Republican gubernatorial primary in the state.

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Two men charged after police find possible link to Texas migrant deaths

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Men were detained leaving home listed on registration papers for abandoned trailer truck where 53 migrants were found dead

Two Mexican nationals at an address linked to the abandoned trailer truck where at least 53 migrants were found dead Monday evening in Texas have been charged with illegally possessing guns as federal authorities continue investigating the grim discovery.

Juan Claudio D’Luna Mendez and Juan Francisco D’Luna Bilbao were at a house in the 100 block of Arnold Drive in San Antonio, listed on the registration papers for the big rig that contained the bodies, which had been discovered abandoned in an industrial area of the Texas city, agents with the federal bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms wrote in a criminal complaint.

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Two more migrants dead from Texas trailer, bringing toll to 53

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Authorities are struggling to identify victims who have no IDs as families in Central America wait in anguish for news

The number of dead migrants found in a stifling trailer in Texas rose to 53 on Wednesday after two more people died, according to the Bexar county medical examiner’s office.

Forty of the victims were male and 13 were female, it said.

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Fifty-one migrants found dead inside abandoned Texas trailer truck

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Mexican foreign minister mourns ‘huge tragedy’ as US investigates effort to smuggle people across border

Fifty-one people believed to be migrants were found dead and at least a dozen others were hospitalized after being found inside an abandoned tractor-trailer rig on Monday on a remote back road in south-west San Antonio, officials have said.

The discovery in Texas may prove to be the deadliest tragedy among thousands of people who have died attempting to cross the US border from Mexico in recent decades.

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Stars align for Cuban migrants as record numbers seek better life in US

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The journey to America, often via Nicaragua, has become more viable – and many are taking their chances at the border

One morning last spring, 22-year-old Ernesto Hernández set out from the outskirts of Havana on a rickety boat hoping to cross the Florida Straits. The plan was to leave behind a dilapidating communist-ruled island in which he saw no future, and sail into an American dream.

Nobody has heard from him, or the other six people onboard, since.

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Up to 15,000 people expected to walk length of Mexico in giant caravan to US

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Largest ever migrant caravan, huddled together for protection, moves north as global leaders gather for Biden’s Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles

Liozanys Comeja credits her survival to her teacup chihuahua, Mia. Originally from Venezuela, Comeja moved to Colombia five years ago, but decided to leave her new life behind this month due to the rising cost of living. She crossed the Darien Gap, a notorious stretch of jungle between Colombia and Panama, with Mia tucked in her backpack, eventually making her way across eight countries. Now, Comeja is hoping the dog will help her make it through the grueling final leg of their journey.

Comeja has joined about 11,000 others who on Monday will leave Tapachula, a sweltering city on the Mexico-Guatemala border, and head north for the United States. It will depart as leaders from across the hemisphere gather in Los Angeles for the Summit of the Americas.

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Judge blocks Biden plan to lift Trump-era restrictions on asylum seekers

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Title 42, which cites the pandemic, is behind nearly 2m expulsions since March 2020

Pandemic-era restrictions on people seeking asylum on the southern border must continue, a judge ruled Friday in an order blocking the Biden administration’s plan to lift them early next week.

The ruling is just the latest instance of a court derailing the president’s proposed immigration policies along the US border with Mexico.

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Seven more survivors of capsized boat rescued near Puerto Rico

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The number of survivors – most of them migrants from Haiti – is now 38, with a death toll of 11

The US Coast Guard has found an additional seven survivors from the capsizing of a vessel carrying Haitian migrants near Puerto Rico, a coastguard spokesperson said on Friday, taking the total number of survivors to 38 with the death toll remaining at 11.

The vessel, which was first spotted on Thursday north of Desecheo Island, an uninhabited island in the archipelago of Puerto Rico, the US territory, was carrying mostly Haitian migrants as well as two citizens of the Dominican Republic, a spokesman said.

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Clothes, shoes, passports: migrants forced to dump possessions at US-Mexico wall

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Personal belongings left behind, including files and passports that could prove crucial in processing claims

In Yuma, south-west Arizona, just a short distance from a gap in the 30-foot-high border barrier between the US and Mexico, Fernando “Fernie” Quiroz collects piles of shoes, shoelaces and clothing from the dirt road and carries them to a large red dumpster already overflowing with personal belongings.

Every day, hundreds of people arrive at gaps in this stretch of border wall to request political asylum from uniformed federal border agents who stand waiting under a rudimentary metal shade structure in the Sonoran desert heat.

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Schumer announces Senate abortion rights vote: ‘America will be watching’ – as it happened

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Numbers are growing and tempers are fraying outside the supreme court. My colleague David Smith has just sent this video of protestors on both sides of the abortion rights debate facing off:

Celebrities are sharing their abortion stories as the backlash to the supreme court’s draft ruling removing women’s rights to the procedure grows. My colleague Lizzy Davies has this report:

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Ukrainian refugees waiting at Mexico camp urge US to open doors

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Fifty to 100 people arriving at camp every day as some told at US border in Tijuana they would no longer be admitted

On a dusty field on the east side of Mexico’s sprawling capital, about 500 Ukrainian refugees are waiting in large tents under a searing sun for the United States government to tell them they can come.

The camp has only been open a week and 50 to 100 people are arriving every day. Some have already been to the US border in Tijuana where they were told they would no longer be admitted. Others arrived at airports in Mexico City or Cancún, anywhere they could find a ticket from Europe.

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