Group of over 100 migrants stranded by human smugglers on island by Puerto Rico

Group including children and pregnant women became stranded while piled in yolas, rickety homemade boats smugglers use

US authorities are trying to rescue more than 100 migrants stranded on an uninhabited island near Puerto Rico during a human smuggling operation.

The nationality of the migrants awaiting help on Mona Island wasn’t immediately known, although officials believe the majority are Haitian, said Jeffrey Quiñones, spokesman for US Customs and Border Protection in Puerto Rico.

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Florida governor Ron DeSantis will fly migrants to Illinois and Delaware

Spokesperson confirms plan to continue with immigration stunts which have attracted investigations and lawsuits

The Republican governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, plans to continue flying undocumented migrants to Democratic strongholds, his spokeswoman said on Saturday, a day after released records showed the state paid nearly $1m to arrange two sets of flights to Delaware and Illinois.

Documents released on Friday showed that the planned flights will transport about 100 migrants. They were scheduled for before 3 October but were halted or postponed. The contractor hired by Florida extended the window for the trips until 1 December, according to memos released by the state transportation department.

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El Paso struggles to house migrants after shelter closes as border crossings surge

City’s new facility has to find shelters for those without alternative after a 40-year beacon of refuge shuttered earlier this year

Chairs and tables lined El Paso’s new Migrant Welcome Center in west Texas, where families who have crossed the US-Mexico border without immigration papers were meeting with volunteers and city employees, or making phone calls to loved ones elsewhere in the United States.

Children amused themselves in a designated play area, while their parents worked out where the next steps of their journey would take them and how they would get there.

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US court orders review of landmark immigration program for Dreamers

Daca is expected to go to the US supreme court for a third time

A ruling by a US appeals court has again thrown into question the future of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) program, which prevents the deportation of hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought into the United States as children.

The fifth US circuit court of appeals decided on Wednesday that a federal district judge in Texas who last year declared Daca illegal, should take another look at the program, following revisions the Biden administration adopted in August.

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Ex-US army medic allegedly lured migrants on to flights to Martha’s Vineyard

Perla Huerta was reportedly sent to Texas from Florida to fill planes chartered by DeSantis, offering gift cards to asylum seekers

A former US army combat medic and counterintelligence agent allegedly solicited asylum seekers to join flights out of Texas to Martha’s Vineyard that Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, chartered.

Perla Huerta was sent to Texas from Tampa to fill the planes at the center of the trips, which many have argued could amount to illegal human trafficking, a person briefed on an investigation into the case told the New York Times.

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‘These people had our backs’: US veterans lobby to rescue allies trapped in Afghanistan

The Afghan Adjustment Act would offer permanent resident status to Afghans who fled the Taliban but Congress has not taken action

​​A group of 12 people sit in camp chairs – chatting, smoking, listening – in the dark. Behind them, the Capitol building in Washington DC is luminescent, bringing into focus the Afghan flag. Well, the version of the flag before the Taliban changed it. It flies above their heads, catching the yellowy light of dusk.

Since Kabul fell to the Taliban in August last year, military veterans and organizations have been lobbying Congress to offer Afghan evacuees long-term visas to stay in the US. Now, with no action taken and thousands coming to the end of their temporary stays, a different route is being taken to pass the Afghan Adjustment Act. This bipartisan bill would grant thousands of Afghans permanent status in the US.

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New York City mayor plans giant tents to house migrants sent by Republicans

City is also considering cruise ships and summer camps as it struggles to house an estimated 13,000 asylum seekers

New York’s mayor says he plans to erect hangar-sized tents as temporary shelter for thousands of international migrants who have been bussed into the city as part of a campaign by Republican governors to disrupt federal border policies.

The tents are among an array of options – from using cruise ships to summer camps – the city is considering as it struggles to find housing for an estimated 13,000 asylum seekers who have wound up in New York after being bussed north from border towns in Texas and Arizona.

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Aviation company used for migrant flights contributed to DeSantis allies

Vertol Systems Inc also has connections to a Florida official in charge of its current immigration policy

The transportation service company that the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, used to arrange flights for migrants to Martha’s Vineyard has contributed money to the governor’s top allies and has connections to a Florida official in charge of its immigration policy.

Vertol Systems Inc, an Oregon-based aviation company that DeSantis used to fly asylum seekers to the affluent, liberal-leaning Massachusetts island, has connections to DeSantis’s political allies and has donated money to various campaigns, NBC News reported.

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Advocates for migrants who were sent to Martha’s Vineyard sue Ron DeSantis

Suit says Venezuelans were ‘used as political pawns’ in a ‘fraudulent and discriminatory’ scheme

Attorneys representing the Venezuelan migrants and refugees allegedly duped into flying to the wealthy island of Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts have filed a class-action civil rights lawsuit against the Florida governor and other state officials.

Lawyers for Civil Rights (LCR), a Boston-based legal advocacy group, filed the lawsuit on Tuesday challenging what it called the “fraudulent and discriminatory” scheme to charter private planes to transport almost 50 vulnerable people, including children as young as two, from San Antonio, Texas, via Florida, to Martha’s Vineyard last week without liaising to arrange shelter and other resources.

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Attorneys for ‘duped’ migrants flown to Martha’s Vineyard call for criminal investigation

Republican governors made ‘false promises to migrants in order to induce them to travel’, lawyers say

Attorneys representing Venezuelan asylum-seekers flown thousands of miles to an affluent holiday island in Massachusetts at the behest of Republican governors have formally requested authorities open a criminal investigation, claiming the victims were “induced to board airplanes and cross state lines under false pretences”.

Lawyers for Civil Rights (LCR), a Boston-based group representing 30 of the 48 people flown from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard on Wednesday, said: “Individuals, working in concert with state officials, including the Florida governor, made numerous false promises [to the migrants] – including of work opportunities, schooling for their children, and immigration assistance – in order to induce them to travel.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• 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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