Category Archives: US immigration

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

Posted on by

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.

Continue reading...

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

Posted on by

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.

Continue reading...

Fifty-one migrants found dead inside abandoned Texas trailer truck

Posted on by

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.

Continue reading...

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

Posted on by

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.

Continue reading...

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

Posted on by

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.

Continue reading...

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

Posted on by

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.

Continue reading...

Seven more survivors of capsized boat rescued near Puerto Rico

Posted on by

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.

Continue reading...

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

Posted on by

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.

Continue reading...

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

Posted on by

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:

Continue reading...

Ukrainian refugees waiting at Mexico camp urge US to open doors

Posted on by

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.

Continue reading...

Trump’s border wall has resulted in ‘unprecedented’ increase in migrant injuries and death

Posted on by

‘This is an unseen public health crisis happening right now,’ says a medical director at UC San Diego Health.

Donald Trump’s “impenetrable” border wall has resulted in increased migrant deaths and devastating injuries from falling, according to a new study that analyzed the effect of the new barriers on a southern California hospital.

The US replaced more than 400 miles of existing barriers that were between six-17ft tall with a 30-ft steel wall, and added nearly 50 miles of new barrier under the former president, who campaigned on the promise of “securing” America’s borders and routinely demonized migrants.

Continue reading...

Biden’s top border official not worried about Republican impeachment threats

Posted on by

Homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas forging ahead with plans to ease Covid-related immigration restrictions

Joe Biden’s top border official said on Sunday he was unconcerned by threats from the top House Republican that the GOP could impeach him if it regains the majority after the midterm elections, as the Biden administration forges ahead with plans to ease a coronavirus-related immigration restriction.

Speaking on CNN’s State of the Union, Alejandro Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, addressed the remarks from the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy.

Continue reading...

Republicans in Congress give McCarthy standing ovation for defense of leaked audio – live

Posted on by

Joe Biden has delivered a moving eulogy to Madeleine Albright, telling mourners at her funeral in Washington DC that the former secretary of state “turned the tide of history”.

The president was among about 1,400 masked attendees at Washington National Cathedral service honouring the top diplomat from the Bill Clinton administration who died last month at the age of 84.

With her humanity and her intellect, she turned the tide of history.

Her story was America’s story. She loved to speak about America as the indispensable nation. To her, the phrase was never a statement of arrogance, it was about gratitude.

That’s why there was nothing she loved more than swearing in new citizens to this great nation of ours. She’d light up reminding them that she once stood where they stood. Having gained the blessings of liberty she wanted nothing more than the share them around the globe.

To Madeleine, from my perspective, there was no higher mission, no greater honor, than to serve this great experiment of freedom known as the United States of America.

Continue reading...

Border migrants injured after high-speed Texas police chase ends in crash

Posted on by

Crash comes after authorities in March reported arresting 210,000 migrants attempting to cross southern border without permission

Sixteen people – most of whom were trying to enter the US without permission – were injured when their pickup truck crashed while being chased at high speeds by Texas police, according to authorities.

Two of those hurt were critically wounded and flown to hospitals in San Antonio by helicopter, said the sheriff of Medina county, Randy Brown, whose deputies pursued the truck at the center of the wreck.

Continue reading...

Soldier in Texas border operation missing and feared to have drowned

Posted on by

Officials dismiss reports that body of soldier, who was part of a security operation overseen by governor, has been found

A Texas national guard soldier who was part of a border security operation overseen by the state’s governor, Greg Abbott, went missing on Friday amid fears the soldier might have drowned in the Rio Grande.

The Texas military department said the disappearance occurred in the river in Eagle Pass during a mission associated with Abbott’s so-called Operation Lone Star.

Continue reading...

‘A senseless tragedy’: woman dies after bid to climb US border wall

Posted on by

Border patrol officials and the Cochise county sheriff’s office investigating cause of death of the 32-year-old woman

A Mexican woman attempting to climb the US border wall in eastern Arizona died after her leg became trapped in a climbing harness and she was left hanging upside down, authorities said.

Border patrol officials and the Cochise county sheriff’s office said they were investigating the cause of death of the 32-year-old on a section of the wall near Douglas, Arizona. The sheriff’s office said her foot and leg became entangled as she tried to maneuver down the US side of the wall and that she hung upside down “a significant amount of time”.

Continue reading...

Biden ends Trump-era asylum curbs amid border-region Democrat backlash

Posted on by

Administration signals end of Title 42 immigration restrictions – ostensibly to fight Covid – but some fear electoral consequences

Joe Biden will next month end a controversial pandemic-related expulsion policy that effectively closed America’s asylum system at its border with Mexico, it was announced on Friday.

The decision to lift the Title 42 public health order, which will take effect on 23 May, is seen as long overdue by immigration advocates who regard the order as inhumane. But it was seized on by Republicans and some electorally vulnerable Democrats, who warned of chaos at the border.

Continue reading...

Revealed: US to close or scale back troubled immigration detention centers

Posted on by
  • Center in Gadsden, Alabama ‘long a facility of serious concern’
  • Advocates have complained over quality of Ice medical care

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) is planning to close a troubled detention center in Alabama and will significantly scale back the number of beds contracted at three other facilities, citing concerns about conditions, according to an internal government document seen by Reuters.

According to the document, Ice will discontinue the use of the Etowah county detention center in Gadsden, Alabama, saying it had “long been a facility of serious concern, due to the quantity, severity, diversity and persistence of deficiencies identified during facility inspections”.

Continue reading...

‘We had no choice’: over 8,000 Russians seek US refuge in six-month period

Posted on by

The increase in asylum-seekers is 35 times the number who crossed the border in Mexico during the same time period last year

Maksim Derzhko calls it one of the most terrifying experiences of his life. A longtime opponent of Vladimir Putin, he flew from Vladivostok to the Mexican border city of Tijuana with his 14-year-old daughter and was in a car with seven other Russians. All that separated them from claiming asylum in the United States was a US officer standing in traffic as vehicles inched toward inspection booths.

The emotions are “hard to put into words,” he says. “It’s fear. The unknown. It’s really hard. We had no choice.”

Continue reading...

‘Traumatised and terrified, with nowhere else to go’: huge numbers of people stuck at US border

Posted on by

Title 42, enacted under Trump and kept in place by Biden, has led to hundreds of thousands being denied their right to asylum since the start of the pandemic

When Henry Ruiz* and Raquel Hernandez boarded a bus heading north to America with their two young children, they knew there would be no going back.

It was June 2021, and a few weeks earlier Ruiz, a 28-year-old banana farmer from central Mexico, had been abducted by a group of armed men and taken to an isolated ranch where 15 others – 13 men and two women – were being held.

Continue reading...