Mexico releases Texas woman who tried to deliver Christmas gifts to migrants

Authorities had arrested Anamichelle Castellano, who runs a not-for-profit, after finding ammunition in her car on Monday

A Texas woman has been allowed to leave Mexico after being detained while trying to deliver Christmas gifts to a sprawling refugee camp housing people waiting in limbo at the border for US court dates to deal with their asylum claims.

Relatives of Anamichelle Castellano say she was arrested by Mexican authorities Monday at a bridge crossing from Brownsville, Texas, to Matamoros, Mexico.

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2019: the photographs that defined America’s year – in pictures

A look back at some of the biggest moments of the past year.

Warning: Some of the following images are graphic in nature and might be disturbing to some viewers.

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Viva Selena! How a murdered pop star gives hope to Latinos

Twenty-five years after her death – and with a Netflix series on the way – Selena’s approach to straddling Mexican and American identities is proving invaluable in the age of Trump

On a sticky Sunday in August, more than 5,000 people are standing through sporadic torrents of rain to attend a free outdoor concert in New York’s Central Park. The event, Selena for Sanctuary, has been organised in response to the Trump administration’s severe policies on undocumented individuals, and the crowd has gathered to support immigrant-rights organisations such as Make the Road New York – all in the name of the pop star Selena Quintanilla.

Selena has been dead for nearly 25 years. The superstar was shot and killed in 1995, at the age of 23, by her fanclub manager, Yolanda Saldívar. Yet at the concert, she seems more present than ever: fans wear T-shirts emblazoned with her wide, red-lipped smile. Others wear one-piece jumpsuits and jackets with gleaming rhinestones, nods to the sparkling stage outfits Selena would often make herself. From the stage, a parade of up-and-coming bilingual artists belts out covers of her classic cumbia hits: Mexican-American indie star Cuco offers his take on Bidi Bidi Bom Bom, dream-pop newcomer Ambar Lucid sings Techno Cumbia, and Colombian-American singer Kali Uchis performs Como la Flor. Their songs are a celebration during a turbulent time, reflecting how Selena still serves as a symbol of hope in the fight for immigrants’ rights.

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Stephen Miller: white nationalist and, still, Trump’s immigration guru

The revelation of an email trove in which the White House aide trafficked in far-right ideas provoked outrage but little surprise

The extraordinary email leak came with a sense of inevitability. The senior Trump adviser Stephen Miller promoted white nationalist articles and books in emails to a writer at Breitbart, who after leaving the hard-right website leaked 900 messages to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

It was a discovery that would end the careers of most political figures. But among calls for Miller’s resignation, a common theme emerged: a lack of surprise that the architect of Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda endorsed white supremacist views.

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How immigrants’ stories took center stage in the impeachment hearings

Vindman, Yovanovitch and Hill showed an unshaken faith in America. But Republicans could not resist cynical innuendo on ‘dual loyalties’

Partisan rancour, smoke and mirrors and damning evidence about the misconduct of the US president – all these were expected from this week’s impeachment inquiry hearings and were provided in spades.

But a narrative that caught many by surprise was the role played by immigrants, the power of their origin stories and their unshaken faith in the ideal of America, even in the “build the wall” era of Donald Trump. At seven hearings over five days, spread over the course of two weeks, this was not only a congressional investigation; it was a nation holding a mirror up to itself.

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Behrouz Boochani, voice of Manus Island refugees, is free in New Zealand

Kurdish Iranian refugee and journalist – a multiple award-winner for documenting life in Australia’s offshore detention system – has left Papua New Guinea

The story behind Behrouz Boochani’s flight to freedom

Behrouz Boochani, the Kurdish Iranian refugee and journalist who became the voice of those incarcerated on Manus Island, has landed in New Zealand and says he will never return to Papua New Guinea or Australia’s immigration regime.

“I will never go back to that place,” he told the Guardian, shortly after leaving PNG. “I just want to be free of the system, of the process. I just want to be somewhere where I am a person, not just a number, not just a label ‘refugee’.”

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Moving stories: inside the book buses changing children’s lives

Around the world, mobile library programmes are taking books, educational support and even counselling to communities in serious and urgent need

Every week, two converted blue buses stocked with children’s books carefully navigate the streets of Kabul, avoiding areas where deadly explosions are common. These travelling libraries stop off at schools in different parts of the city, delivering a wealth of reading material directly to youngsters who have limited access to books.

“A lot of schools in our city don’t have access to something as basic as a library,” says Freshta Karim, a 27-year-old Oxford University graduate who was inspired to start Charmaghz, a non-profit, in her home city having grown up without many books herself. “We were trying to understand what we could do to promote critical thinking in our country.”

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Judge blocks Trump’s rule requiring immigrants show they have healthcare

  • Federal judge issues temporary stay after Oregon hearing
  • Litigator says ban would separate families

A federal judge in Portland, Oregon, has put on hold a Trump administration rule requiring immigrants to prove they will have health insurance or can pay for medical care before they can get visas.

US district judge Michael Simon granted a temporary restraining order that prevented the rule from going into effect Sunday. It was not clear when he would rule on the merits of the case.

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Exclusive: Texas immigration center guard accused of assaulting boy, five

Family asks Department of Homeland Security to halt their deportation to Honduras to investigate the alleged assault

A private prison guard physically assaulted a five-year-old boy at an immigration detention center in Texas, according to a complaint filed with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Related: She raised her niece like a daughter. Then the US government separated them at the border

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‘I don’t regret enforcing the law’: Nielsen defends family separation at summit

In a heated 15-minute public interview, the former US homeland security secretary defended her decision as protests raged outside

The former US homeland security secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, repeatedly defended her decision to separate thousands of children from their parents at the southern border, in her first public interview since she resigned in April.

At Fortune magazine’s Most Powerful Woman summit in Washington DC on Tuesday, the PBS NewsHour correspondent Amna Nawaz asked Nielsen four times if she regretted signing off on the family separation policy, before Nielsen responded: “I don’t regret enforcing the law.

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British family deported after saying they accidentally crossed US border

Family of seven were detained for nearly two weeks after crossing into Washington state, saying they were trying to avoid an animal in the road

Lawyers for a British family who made an unauthorized crossing from Canada into the United States say the family have been deported after nearly two weeks in federal custody.

Bridget Cambria says US Immigration and Customs Enforcement told her all seven members of the family, including an infant and toddler twins, were headed back to England. Ice declined comment Wednesday afternoon, saying it did not discuss “removal arrangements” before deportees are back in their own country.

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‘It’s worse than ever’: how Latinos are changing their lives in Trump’s America

Hate crimes have risen steadily since 2016, and Latinos say they feel vulnerable: ‘It rattles you at your core’

The first time someone called Lidia Carrillo a “wetback” she had to ask her teacher what the slur meant. She was only 13, and had recently moved to California from Jalisco, Mexico, with her parents and six siblings.

Carrillo had tried to explain that her family hadn’t crossed any river, but it didn’t matter. “They looked at us differently,” she recalled.

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‘We’ve been taken hostage’: African migrants stranded in Mexico after Trump’s crackdown

Hundreds of migrants from Africa are stuck in Tapachula because of Mexico’s willingness to bow to Trump and stem the flow of migrants

Neh knew she was taking a risk when she got involved with English-language activists in mostly-Francophone Cameroon.

She had no way of know that her decision would eventually force her to flee her country, fly halfway across the world and then set out on a 4,000-mile trek through dense jungle and across seven borders – only to leave her stranded in southern Mexico, where her hopes of finding safety in the US were blocked by the Mexican government’s efforts to placate Donald Trump’s anti-migrant rage.

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Trump has nearly destroyed US refugee program, experts say

Administration announced it would set a refugee cap of 18,000 people for the fiscal year, and allow states to ban resettlement

Trump administration changes to US refugee policy are “tantamount to destroying the program”, according to experts, as the amount of people displaced worldwide continues to grow.

On Thursday, the administration announced it would set a refugee cap of 18,000 people for the fiscal year, which begins 1 October. It also issued an executive order allowing states or “local governments” to ban refugee resettlement.

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US to sign agreement to send asylum seekers to El Salvador

Deal could lead to migrants obtaining refuge in El Salvador, one of Central America’s most violent countries

The United States planned to sign an agreement on Friday to help make one of Central America’s most violent countries, El Salvador, a haven for migrants seeking asylum, according to a senior Trump administration official.

The official said the acting homeland security secretary, Kevin McAleenan, would sign a “cooperative asylum agreement”.

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‘Confused and fearful’: New Yorkers grapple with Trump immigration policies

Residents of Jackson Heights, one of New York’s most diverse neighborhoods, are concerned the new ‘public charge’ rule will put families at risk

In a packed room in Jackson Heights – one of the most diverse neighborhoods in New York and the US as a whole – cancer survivor Blanca Palomeque explains how the Trump administration’s new policies will force immigrants into making impossible decisions.

The 56-year-old from Ecuador, who was treated for ovarian cancer in the US before applying for her green card 11 years ago, explains how if the new “public charge” rule – which will penalize immigrants for using benefits – had been in place then, “I don’t know what I would have done”.

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Greta Thunberg joins young activists in climate protest outside White House – live

Swedish teen climate activist and other youth advocates demand action from the US to address the climate crisis

A Taliban negotiating team has reportedly arrived in Russia just days after Trump said potential peace talks with the group were “dead.”

The AP reports:

Russian state news agency Tass cited the Taliban’s Qatar-based spokesman Suhail Shaheen as saying the delegation had held consultations with Zamir Kabulov, President Vladimir Putin’s envoy for Afghanistan.

The visit also was confirmed to The Associated Press by a Taliban official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters.

This may well be the most terrifying thing you read on this Friday the 13th. Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter and senior adviser, told a group of donors last month that she got her moral compass from her father.

At a mid-August fundraiser in Jackson Hole, Wyo., Ivanka Trump was asked to name the personality traits she inherited most from her parents.

Without much of a pause, Trump told the crowd of roughly 120 high-end donors that her mother gave her an example of how to be a powerful, successful woman.

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Hundreds of Bahamian evacuees ordered off boat due to lack of US visas

Crew said people without visas must disembark ferry to Florida because of CBP’s ‘last-minute call’ that they would not be admitted

More than a hundred Bahamian citizens desperate to escape the devastation of Hurricane Dorian were ordered off a ferry to Florida, sparking a dispute between US immigration officials and the operator of the vessel.

Related: Search for survivors of Hurricane Dorian continues in Bahamas

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Democrats condemn reported Trump plan to bar most refugees from US

  • Administration officials reportedly aim to slash admissions
  • Beto O’Rourke: ‘We need more refugees, not fewer’

Leading Democrats have condemned reported moves by the Trump administration to effectively bar refugees arriving from most parts of the world.

As reported by the New York Times, the administration plans to cut back on a decades-old programme that each year admits tens of thousands fleeing war, persecution and famine.

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