Inclusion of migrant voters is important
Several hundred people marched through the streets of El Paso Saturday afternoon, and when they arrived at a group of migrants huddling outside a church, they sang to them no estan solos you are not alone. Around 300 migrants have taken refuge on sidewalks outside Sacred Heart Church, some of them afraid to seek more formal shelters, advocates say, amid new restrictions meant to crack down on illegal border crossings. This is the scene that will greet President Joe Biden on his first, politically thorny visit to the southern border Sunday. The president announced last week that Cubans, Nicaraguans, Haitians and Venezuelans will be expelled to Mexico if they enter the U.S. illegally an expansion of a pandemic-era immigration policy called Title 42. The new rules will also include offering humanitarian parole for up to 30,000 people a month from those four countries if they apply online and find a financial sponsor. Biden is scheduled to arrive in El Paso Sunday afternoon before ..
Three buses of recent migrant families arrived from Texas near the home of Vice President Kamala Harris in record-setting cold on Christmas Eve. Texas authorities have not confirmed their involvement, but the bus dropoffs are in line with previous actions by border-state governors calling attention to the Biden administration's immigration policies. The buses that arrived late Saturday outside the vice president's residence were carrying around 110 to 130 people, according to Tatiana Laborde, managing director of SAMU First Response, a relief agency working with the city of Washington to serve thousands of migrants who have been dropped off in recent months. Local organizers had expected the buses to arrive Sunday but found out Saturday that the group would get to Washington early, Laborde said. The people on board included young children. Some were wearing T-shirts despite temperatures hovering around 15 degrees Fahrenheit (-9 degrees Celsius). It was the coldest Christmas Eve on
Hairdresser Grisel Garcs survived a harrowing, four-month journey from her native Venezuela through tropical jungles, migrant detention centres in southern Mexico and then jolting railcar rides north toward the U.S. border. Now on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande across from El Paso, Texas, she's anxiously awaiting a pending U.S. Supreme Court decision on asylum restrictions expected to affect her and thousands of other migrants at crossings along some 3,100 kilometers of border from Texas to California. And she's doing so while living outside as winter temperatures plunge over much of the U.S. and across the border. She told of fleeing economic hardship only to find more hardship, such as now having to shiver through temperatures colder than any she's ever experienced. Riding the train was bad. Here the situation is even worse. You just turn yourself over to God's mercy, said Garcs, who left a school-aged daughter behind, hoping to reach the U.S. with her husband. Their savings
The US Supreme Court has temporarily halted the expiration of an asylum-limiting policy which was set to end this week
A British court has ruled that the government's plan to send asylum-seekers on a one-way trip to Rwanda is lawful
The Department of Homeland Security said more migrants may be released into the United States to pursue immigration cases when Trump-era asylum restrictions end next week in one of its most detailed assessments ahead of the major policy shift. The department reported faster processing for migrants in custody on the border, more temporary detention tents, staffing surges and increased criminal prosecutions of smugglers, noting progress on a plan announced in April. But the seven-page document dated Tuesday included no major structural changes amid unusually large numbers of migrants entering the country. More are expected with the end of Title 42 authority, under which migrants have been denied rights to seek asylum more than 2.5 million times on grounds of preventing spread of COVID-19. A federal judge in Washington ordered Title 42 to end December 21 but Republican-led states asked an appeals court to keep it in place. The Biden administration has also challenged some aspects of
The US government said Wednesday it is appealing a court ruling that would otherwise lift asylum restrictions that have become the cornerstone of border enforcement in recent years. The enforcement rule first took effect in March 2020, denying migrants' rights to seek asylum under US and international law on grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19. The Homeland Security Department said it would file an appeal with the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, challenging a November ruling by US District Judge Emmet Sullivan that ordered President Joe Biden's administration to lift the asylum restrictions. The restrictions were put in place under former President Donald Trump at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The practice was authorized under Title 42 of a broader 1944 law covering public health, and has been used to expel migrants more than 2.4 million times.
This is because 79 per cent of them avail PDS only at their home locations, a new study has found
Dominican authorities have expelled at least 1,800 unaccompanied Haitian migrant children this year, sending them back to their crisis-stricken country, UNICEF said. The Dominican Republic denied the claim, which came Tuesday amid the government's intensifying crackdown on migration in response to a cholera outbreak and ongoing gang violence in Haiti. The two countries share a 390-kilometer border on the island of Hispaniola. The crackdown has provoked harsh criticism by international observers, including the United States, which have accused the country of mass deportations, racist treatment of migrants and detentions of Haitians in facilities with poor conditions. Among those fleeing to the Dominican Republic are girls and boys, many of whom are sent back to Haiti through different border points, where they have been received by UNICEF partners at the border, according to the organisation. The information was first reported by CNN, and confirmed by UNICEF, which declined to comm
A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the Biden administration to lift the Trump-era asylum restrictions that have been a cornerstone of border enforcement since the beginning of COVID-19. US District Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled in Washington that enforcement must end immediately for families and single adults, calling the ban "arbitrary and capricious". The administration has not applied it to children travelling alone. Sullivan, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton, wrote in a 49-page ruling that authorities failed to consider the impact on migrants and possible alternatives. The ruling appears to conflict with another in May by a federal judge in Louisiana that kept the asylum restrictions. If Sullivan's ruling stands, it would upend border enforcement. Migrants have been expelled from the United States more than 2.4 million times since the rule took effect in March 2020, denying migrants rights to seek asylum under US and international law on grounds of preventing the spread
The Biden administration is developing plans for Venezuelans with financial sponsors to be granted parole to enter the United States, similar to how Ukrainians have been admitted after Russia's invasion, U.S. officials said Tuesday. Four officials offered broad outlines of the plan to deal with a large increase in Venezuelans arriving at the U.S. border with Mexico. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss the matter publicly. Venezuelans who cross the border illegally on land would be immediately returned to Mexico, two officials said. Currently, Mexico only accepts migrants expelled under Title 42 authority a pandemic-era rule that denies migrants rights to seek asylum and is designed to prevent the spread of COVID-19 if they are from Guatemala, El Salvador or Honduras, in addition to Mexico. Venezuelans who qualify for parole would enter the U.S. at airports, two officials said, mirroring a program introduced in April that allows Ukrainia
Three-quarters of respondents believe a lack of access to labor is threatening the UK's competitiveness as a place to employ people, the Confederation of British Industry said Tuesday.
At least 15 people have died as two boats carrying migrants sank in Greek waters late Wednesday, and rescuers were looking for dozens still missing, authorities said early Thursday. The coast guard said 15 bodies had been recovered near the eastern island of Lesbos after a dinghy carrying about 40 people sank. Five people were rescued and three had been located on a rocky outcrop near the site of the sinking. A second rescue effort was launched several hundred kilometers (miles) to the west, near the island of Kythira, where a sailboat carrying about 100 migrants hit rocks and sank late Wednesday. Officials said 30 people had been rescued after that boat hit rocks off the village port of Diakofti on the east of the island. Winds in the area were up to 70 kph (45 mph). We could see the boat smashing against the rocks and people climbing up those rocks to try and save themselves. It was an unbelievable sight, Martha Stathaki, a local resident told The Associated Press. All the resid
Pope Francis traveled to southern Italy on Sunday to close out an Italian church congress that coincided with Italy's national election, and delivered a message that hit on key domestic campaign issues including immigration. Neither Francis nor his hosts referred to the vote during the open-air Mass, though Italy's bishops conference had earlier urged Italians to cast ballots in the eagerly watched election that could bring Italy its first far-right government since World War II. At the end of the outdoor Mass in Matera, Francis spoke off the cuff asking Italians to have more children. I'd like to ask Italy: More births, more children, Francis said. Italy has one of the lowest birth rates in the world and Francis has frequently lamented its demographic winter. Far-right leader Giorgia Meloni, who campaigned on a God, family and homeland mantra, has also called for Italy to reverse its demographic trends by proposing bigger financial incentives for couples to have children. Francis
A boat carrying Haitian migrants apparently capsized off the Bahamas early Sunday, and Bahamian security forces recovered the bodies of 17 people and rescued 25 others, authorities said.
Harmful border policies put in place by the US are damaging to Mexico and undermine the human rights of millions of migrants, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) said.
Tens of thousands of migrants, who have been living in Germany for years without permission to remain in the country, will be eligible for residency after the government approved a new migration bill
Forty-six people were found dead and 16 others were taken to hospitals after a tractor-trailer rig containing suspected migrants was found Monday on a remote back road in southwest San Antonio
One by one, a voice called out the names of 169 people released by US Border Patrol. Migrants rose from folding chairs in a clinic and walked to a table of blue-robed workers, who swabbed their mouths