Category Archives: US immigration

British family deported after saying they accidentally crossed US border

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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  • 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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Trump’s Middle East envoy resigns amid Kushner’s stalling peace plan – live

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US president says Jason Greenblatt will be leaving to pursue work in the private sector after three years in administration

A CNN analyst neatly summarized Joe Biden’s continued dominance in the polls despite a series of embarrassing gaffes that many commentators predicted would affect his front-runner status.

Average of all polls this year of Biden v. Trump? Biden by 8. Average of all August polls, after all the gaffes? Biden by 10. That's the same as it is in the RCP average. Clinton lead in the RCP average against Trump at this point? 2.4 points... (1/?)

Maybe, it will change. Heck, we're over a year out. But the difference between what the numbers are saying and conventional wisdom (at least in some quarters) is stunning.

Meanwhile, Trump is still refusing to acknowledge that he was wrong when he tweeted Sunday about the threat Hurricane Dorian posed to Alabama.

Just as I said, Alabama was originally projected to be hit. The Fake News denies it! pic.twitter.com/elJ7ROfm2p

I was with you all the way Alabama. The Fake News Media was not! https://t.co/gO5pwahaj9

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More Cubans seek asylum in Mexico amid clampdown on legal path to US

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US-bound Cubans used to encounter far fewer obstacles on the migration passage, but that’s changed due to crackdowns

Yatsel Jerez Ramón has been in Mexico for six weeks, and so far, nothing has gone well for the Cuban migrant trying to reach the United States.

On his first night in Tenosique, a small city in the southern border state of Tabasco, Jerez, 37, narrowly escaped a police raid at his hotel. The following day, a man posing as a state lawyer convinced him to handover $500 to obtain a humanitarian visa with which, Jerez was told, he’d be able to safely continue his passage north.

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Revealed: man force-fed in Ice custody at risk due to ‘substandard care’ says doctor

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Ajay Kumar, who is on a hunger strike while detained in El Paso, is receiving ‘abysmal’ treatment, doctor said in court documents

The life of an Indian asylum seeker on hunger strike in US detention is at risk because of the “abysmal” treatment he is receiving from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), which began force-feeding him two weeks ago, a doctor warned in court documents filed this week.

Dr Parveen Parmar, chief of the division of global emergency medicine at the University of Southern California, said in an affidavit that the 33-year-old asylum seeker, Ajay Kumar, is receiving “the worst medical care I have seen in my 10 years of practice”.

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Trump says he is seriously looking at ending birthright citizenship – video

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The US president has said his administration is looking at ending the right of citizenship for US-born children of non-citizens and people who entered the country illegally. ‘We’re looking at that very seriously, birthright citizenship, where you have a baby on our land, you walk over the border, have a baby – congratulations, the baby is now a US citizen ... It’s frankly ridiculous,’ Donald Trump told reporters

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US customs outage delays thousands of travelers in airports across country

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Social media posts show serious congestion as ‘temporary’ issue affects hubs including JFK and LAX

Thousands of travelers at major US airports faced congested terminals and long lines on Friday due to a temporary computer outage that affected the US Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) processing systems.

Related: Passenger anger as tens of thousands hit by BA systems failure

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Vehicle drives into protesters outside US detention centre – video

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A vehicle drove into a line of protesters outside a detention centre in Rhode Island on Wednesday. Dozens of people were protesting against the contract between US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Wyatt detention facility when a correctional officer swerved into the crowd. Officers at the scene then pepper sprayed the demonstrators. At least one person was taken to hospital with a broken leg

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Trump official: Statue of Liberty poem should mean ‘poor who can stand on own two feet’

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Ken Cuccinelli defends Trump’s decision to make it harder for migrants to be awarded residence if they got benefit programs

Ken Cuccinelli, the acting director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), has proposed a new interpretation of the famous welcome that appears on a placard at the Statue of Liberty.

The famous lines, taken from The New Colossus by the 19th-century New York poet Emma Lazarus, read: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

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More major US immigration raids likely despite outcry – report

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White House ordered Ice agents to identify targets across the US, report says, with focus on workplaces

More major raids aimed at picking up undocumented immigrants are likely soon despite a flood of outrage at a huge operation last week that saw more than 600 Latino workers detained at poultry plants in Mississippi.

Donald Trump’s White House has ordered US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents to identify more targets across the country, according to a report by CNN. The network said the raids would be specifically aimed at workplaces, just like those in Mississippi.

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Trump blames ‘violent’ video games as El Paso death toll rises to 21 – live

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Trump has turned his attention away from the shootings if his Twitter feed is any indication.

The president has instead been busy attacking China for harming America’s economy and repeating the (false) claim that US consumers are not covering the cost of his trade war:

....used currency manipulation to steal our businesses and factories, hurt our jobs, depress our workers’ wages and harm our farmers’ prices. Not anymore!

Another Democratic presidential candidate, Cory Booker, has dismissed Trump’s statement on the shootings this morning as woefully lacking.

The New Jersey senator specifically cited Trump’s focus on mental illness in his remarks. “Mental illness didn’t kill the people of Dayton,” Booker said. “People are too easily getting their hands on guns.”

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Running dry: the water crisis driving migration to the US – podcast

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Nina Lakhani explores how drought and famine are fuelling the wave of migration from Central America to the US. Plus: Emma Graham-Harrison on China and the Hong Kong protests

Victor Funez walks to a cemetery in Nejapa, El Salvador, every day and fills a three-gallon plastic pitcher with water before trudging home. He repeats this several times a day – it’s his family’s only source of water. The Guardian’s Nina Lakhani met him as part of an investigation into how a lack of access to clean water is a major driver of migration from Central America to the US.

She tells India Rakusen that rising sea levels are destroying coastal towns in Honduras and how drought and famine have prompted a mass exodus from Guatemala. In El Salvador, meanwhile, corporate interests, corruption and gangs worsen the problems caused by the lack of clean water.

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