The border crisis took no time off this Memorial Day weekend as thousands of migrants continued to pour over the southern border.

More than 4,000 migrants illegally crossed the border via the Rio Grande Valley over the course of the long weekend, Fox News has learned.

“There’s no effort to actually secure the border and to figure out who and what’s coming in when you create a chaotic situation like this, and they have created this through their policies,” Scott said.

BORDER PATROL CHIEF ‘EXTREMELY PROUD’ AS AGENTS NAB MULTIPLE SEX OFFENDERS, DRUG HAULS OVER THREE DAYS

According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Border Patrol has encountered 1,219,920 undocumented migrants so far in 2022, and that number appears far from slowing amid the administration’s efforts to end Title 42, a health order that allows the U.S. to turn away undocumented migrants seeking asylum.

The Department of Justice announced it will appeal a decision handed down last week by a federal judge that blocked the administration from ending Title 42, however the DOJ has not officially filed the appeal.

Once Title 42 expires, the Department of Homeland Security predicts up to 18,000 migrants could cross the border daily.

Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz announced Friday that agents had nabbed 10 sex offenders, a slew of deadly drugs, and other illegal immigrants wanted for serious crimes in three days.

Fox News’ Caroline Elliott and Adam Shaw contributed to this report.

Jessica Chasmar is a reporter for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to Jessica.Chasmar@fox.com and on Twitter: @JessicaChasmar.

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/4000-illegal-immigrants-border-memorial-day

The post 4,000 illegal immigrants crossed border over Memorial Day weekend in Rio Grande Valley sector alone first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

EXCLUSIVE: House Republicans are demanding that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) immediately deploy already-procured security equipment and technologies at the southern border in order to mitigate the surge in illegal border crossings and the influx of drug and human smuggling.

In a letter, exclusively obtained by Fox News Digital, sent to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, House Committee Homeland Security Ranking Member Rep. John Katko, R-N.Y., and Rep. Young Kim, R-Calif., led colleagues in expressing concern that the Biden administration is not deploying technologies at the border in order to address the migration crisis.

The lawmakers say that because the Biden administration canceled a series of border barrier contracts, already-procured technologies are being stored in warehouses, costing American taxpayers without any benefit. They site the fact that border agents encountered nearly 235,000 migrants at the southern border in April, while over 17,800 pounds of deadly fentanyl have been seized by agents since the start of fiscal year 2021.

4,000 ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS CROSSED BORDER OVER MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND IN RIO GRANDE VALLEY SECTOR ALONE

“We are troubled by claims that DHS is not fully deploying innovative ‘smart’ technologies along the border, such as AST towers and fiber optic sensors, that have been procured by the federal government through contracts previously granted for building border barrier infrastructure,” the lawmakers wrote.

“Instead of making use of these innovative technologies to improve security in our southern border, decrease the influx of illegal drugs and human trafficking operations, we have been told the federal government has decided to store them at significant expense while also placing a large burden on contractors, some of whom have been ordered to remain in an indefinite holding process. These contractors continue to incur significant costs while not being able to sell and/or wind down investments.”

The Republicans issued the DHS secretary a list of demands, including a complete accounting of the procured technologies being stored in warehouses, a list of how much of the technology is still operational, and whether there are any proposals to use the equipment by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) or any other agencies.

“Failing to mount an adequate response to the upcoming surge in illegal crossings, especially when no contingencies are currently in place to make up for the rescinding of Title 42 policy, presents a major risk to CBP personnel while threatening their important efforts to interdict drug smuggling and illicit human trafficking at our border and its legal points of entry,” the congressmen wrote.

The Biden administration came under fire from both Republicans and Democrats for planning to end the Title 42 public health order, which has been used since March 2020 to expel a majority of migrants at the southern border due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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However, a federal judge on May 20 temporarily blocked the administration from ending Title 42, saying the end of the order would increase border crossings and would also violate the Administrative Procedures Act (APA), which requires a notice-and-comment period and also bars moves deemed “arbitrary and capricious.”

Mayorkas visited the Rio Grande Valley section of the southern border last month and met with CBP officers, who were concerned that the termination of Title 42 would be catastrophic due to an anticipated migrant surge.

DHS did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital on the letter.

Fox News’ Adam Shaw contributed to this report.

Kelly Laco is a politics editor for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to Kelly.Laco@Fox.com and on Twitter: @kelly_laco.

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/republicans-demand-mayorkas-utilize-border-security-equipment-technologies-mitigate-illegal-migrant-surge

The post Republicans demand Mayorkas utilize border security equipment, technologies to mitigate illegal migrant surge first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

In Biden v. Texas, the attorneys general of Missouri and Texas sued after the Biden administration ended the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), also known as the “Remain in Mexico” policy.

The Department of Homeland Security began the MPP in 2019 under President Donald Trump. It tasks agents with returning illegal immigrants seeking asylum to Mexico as they work their way through the U.S. legal system.

On his first day in office, the Biden administration announced it would no longer carry out the program. The administration argued the policy in question was inhumane, strained the U.S. relationship with Mexico, and created chaos. Texas and Missouri argued the administration’s plan is more chaotic and hurts the American public by releasing thousands of illegal immigrants into U.S. communities.

The federal government argued it needs Mexico’s cooperation to carry out the policy, which ties its hands.

In a news conference after oral arguments, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton rebuffed that claim, pointing out the Trump administration was able to successfully work with Mexico to quickly deport migrants.

“This is a really important case… In my opinion, we’ve all become border states. It affects all of us,” Paxton said.

Since Biden took office, illegal immigration has soared, raising more concerns about the president’s policies. Border Patrol reported more than 2 million encounters with people crossing the southern border illegally in 2021. Those numbers remain elevated this year.

“In total, there were 221,303 encounters along the southwest land border in March, a 33 percent increase compared to February,” U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported earlier this month. “Of those, 28 percent involved individuals who had at least one prior encounter in the previous 12 months, compared to an average one-year re-encounter rate of 14 percent for FY2014-2019.”

U.S. District Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk of the Northern District of Texas ruled in August that the Biden administration must reinstate the MPP, saying they violated federal law by discontinuing it. In August, the Supreme Court said it would not immediately overturn that order.

“The applicants have failed to show a likelihood of success on the claim that the memorandum rescinding the Migrant Protection Protocols was not arbitrary and capricious,” that order read.

But the case was back before the nation’s highest court Tuesday.

During oral arguments, the justices grilled both sides and questioned the public benefit of releasing illegal immigrants into the U.S. and the process used by the Department of Homeland Security to evaluate and release migrants. They also raised concerns about funding, asking what else could be done if DHS does not have the resources to detain migrants and Mexico is hesitant to take them back.

The federal government stressed that it did not have the room to detain the hundreds of thousands of migrants encountered at the border every month.

“So you agree that Congress has expressed a preference for detention when that is available,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked the federal government’s attorney, to which she agreed.

Supporters of the Biden administration’s policy change argued it was more humane to migrants.

“For over three years, MPP has forced thousands of asylum seekers to wait for their asylum hearings in dangerous border towns, subjecting them to systemic danger and violence,” said Joan Rosenhauer, executive director of Jesuit Refugee Service. “JRS works directly with people in northern Mexico as they await their opportunity to pursue asylum and find safety in the U.S. We hear every day of the violence and suffering they experience.”

Biden also has taken fire for his decision to end Title 42 enforcement May 23. A Trump-era provision, Title 42 allows border agents to quickly expel illegal immigrants to prevent the spread of COVID-19 into the U.S. A federal judge on Monday blocked his lifting of that provision.

“I view Missouri as a proxy for all the others states impacted by the crisis we have at the border,” Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt said. “Today, this is a central question about the rule of law and border security. We are very hopeful for a positive decision and result here.

“The drug trafficking, human trafficking doesn’t stop in El Paso,” he added.

Source: https://www.thecentersquare.com/national/u-s-supreme-court-hears-arguments-in-remain-in-mexico-lawsuit/article_2d1caa2c-c57c-11ec-a771-6b07761ad4d0.html

The post U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments in ‘Remain in Mexico’ lawsuit first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

President Biden halted the returns when he took office, but in September a U.S. District Court ordered his administration to reinstate the program, formally known as the Migrant Protection Protocols. After months of negotiations with Mexico, the Biden administration relaunched MPP in early December, starting in El Paso.

Immigration advocates were furious, blaming Biden for not pushing back harder. But two months after its restart, the new version of MPP bears little resemblance to President Donald Trump’s. The Biden administration has re-implemented the program with a narrow scope and none of the zeal demonstrated by Trump officials.

Border arrests are even higher now than in 2019, but El Paso’s immigration courts remain light on MPP cases. On a recent afternoon, two MPP enrollees, both adult men from Nicaragua, appeared before immigration judge Nathan L. Herbert. The next day, there were three.

“Do you have a fear of return to Nicaragua?” Herbert asked the men, who had been waiting in Ciudad Juárez for their court appointment after being arrested by U.S. border agents six weeks earlier near Del Rio, Tex. The men answered yes.

Herbert set their asylum hearings for early March and asked the men whether they feared a return to Mexico. They said yes. A U.S. asylum officer would have to evaluate their claims before they could be returned to Ciudad Juárez.

Trump sent nearly 70,000 asylum seekers back to Mexico under MPP, using the program as a deterrent for the record numbers of Central American families who were crossing the border and hoping to be released into the United States while awaiting court hearings. Kidnappings, robberies and other attacks on returned asylum seekers in Mexico were rampant, and thousands of MPP enrollees languished in a grubby Rio Grande tent camp that became a symbol of MPP’s dysfunction.

The biggest difference under Biden has been the scale of returns. His administration was ordered to restore MPP “in good faith,” but the court did not set quotas. So far the Department of Homeland Security has sent back about 410 MPP enrollees, according to the latest U.N. figures, equivalent to about seven asylum seekers per day border wide, compared with 300 to 400 returned daily in summer 2019.

The U.N. figures show the number of returns declined from about 270 in December to about 140 in January.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R), whose lawsuit forced Biden to restart MPP, called the low numbers “outrageous.”

“I secured a win in district court that compels Biden to re-implement Remain-in-Mexico,” Paxton wrote in a tweet. “Biden MUST use MPP to send illegals back to Mexico. He’s violating the Court’s order, and I won’t let it stand.”

Paxton’s office did not respond to calls seeking clarification regarding what additional legal recourse, if any, he is considering.

Biden officials say the numbers will increase over the coming months. But they have limited the program almost exclusively to adult men, while exempting those considered vulnerable on the basis of mental and physical health issues, advanced age, or sexual orientation or gender identity.

Biden has used MPP almost exclusively for young men from Nicaragua, Venezuela and Cuba. Those nations have strained relations with the United States — the U.S. government doesn’t even recognize Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro as the country’s legitimate president — making deportations difficult.

Biden officials say they are selecting migrants from those nations for MPP because Mexico will not accept their returns under the emergency public health authority known as Title 42, which has been used during the coronavirus pandemic and remains the U.S. government’s primary border management tool. It allows U.S. authorities to skirt standard immigration proceedings and rapidly “expel” migrants, including asylum seekers, to their home countries or to Mexico, in order to avoid the spread of infections inside detention centers.

Fewer returns, but for some, a welcome shot at U.S. asylum
Mexico has set limits on the return of migrants by U.S. authorities, insisting MPP returns should occur only if there is sufficient shelter space, and quarantine capacity for those who test positive for the coronavirus. U.S. officials said they are working with Mexico to boost its capacity to take more MPP enrollees.

“We are subject to Mexico’s requirements in terms of the restrictions they place on individuals subject to returns, and we just got hit with the omicron variant, which has had a substantial impact on our ability to return people,” said a senior Department of Homeland Security official who described operational details of the program on the condition of anonymity, citing ongoing litigation.

The DHS official also attributed the low MPP numbers to limited U.S. capacity and the additional safeguards added under Biden. U.S. officials now ask MPP candidates whether they fear a return to Mexico, which officials did not do under Trump. About 85 to 90 percent of MPP enrollees say they do fear harm in Mexico; 10 to 15 percent are found to face a “reasonable possibility” of harm, the official said.

The Biden administration has drafted a new memo seeking to terminate MPP. But officials say they will abide by the court order while the injunction remains in place, and they plan to expand the program over the coming months if strains on shelter capacity and staffing from the virus ease. On Friday, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals certified its denial of the Biden administration’s challenge to the lower court order reinstating MPP. The court had rejected the government’s arguments in a sharply worded 117-page opinion in December.

MPP will expand next to Laredo, Tex., and has already been re-implemented in San Diego and Brownsville, Tex., as well as El Paso.

GOP critics say the Biden administration is flouting the court and squandering a proven enforcement tool that discourages spurious asylum claims, pointing to MPP’s role in breaking the momentum of the 2019 border surge.

Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) told reporters Wednesday he visited the temporary court facilities the Biden administration has set up for MPP hearings in Brownsville and found them “empty.”

“The federal taxpayers are paying millions of dollars for a decorative item so the Biden administration can tell the courts we’re implementing MPP but not actually doing it,” Lankford said.

One twist of Biden’s MPP restart is that it has opened a quicker path to U.S. asylum for some migrants at a time when most other avenues remain closed off by the Title 42 pandemic expulsions.

The Venezuelans, Nicaraguans and Cubans who have been the vast majority of MPP enrollees under Biden tend to have stronger claims for asylum or some form of humanitarian protection, because the United States denounces their governments as repressive and authoritarian.

“MPP gave me a chance,” said Boris, a Nicaraguan asylum seeker who spoke on the condition that his last name be withheld because he still fears possible deportation.

Boris, 29, crossed the border between Ciudad Juárez and El Paso in early December and was among the first group of migrants to be placed in MPP under Biden. Boris said he faces persecution in his home country for protesting against the government of President Daniel Ortega, who was sworn in for a fourth term last year in an election the Biden administration denounced as “a sham.”

Boris returned from Mexico to the El Paso immigration court in early January, describing his fear of persecution through the help of an interpreter. He also told the court that he suffered from a chronic lung condition that would endanger his life if he was returned to Mexican shelters.

The judge exempted him from MPP, and he was released to a church-operated shelter with dozens of others he said had contracted the coronavirus. Five days later, he joined his cousins at their Austin-area apartment, and awaits another court date next week.

“They handed me my papers and sent me off,” Boris said. “I don’t know why or how. Now I’m here, safe and happy to be here, hoping I won’t be deported.”

Sent back to Ciudad Juárez
Under Trump, asylum seekers sent to Mexico were often confused and adrift, unsure how to find legal help or return for their U.S. court appointments. They were visible on the streets of Mexican border cities and were easy targets for criminal gangs.

Marysol Castro, an attorney with El Paso’s Diocesan Migrant and Refugee Services who provides legal aid to asylum seekers in MPP, said the program’s return under Biden was a “relief” to some, “because otherwise if you go to the border you’re getting expelled” under Title 42.

Castro said new enrollees in MPP have court dates with fast-tracked hearings, unlike asylum seekers who were placed into the program under Trump and are still stuck in Mexico “with no hope.”

Mexican authorities say they received assurances from the Biden administration that migrants placed in MPP would have improved access to legal counsel. But despite the vastly lower numbers, there is still far more demand for pro bono legal services than nonprofit groups and charities can provide, Castro said.

More than two-thirds of MPP returns under Biden have been sent to Ciudad Juárez, where they are provided secure transportation through a State Department contract with the U.N. International Organization for Migration. The Mexican government houses them in a shelter set up in a converted warehouse in an industrial area of the city.

“The shelters are more restrictive,” said Victor Hugo Lopez, a Mexican official who helps oversee the program. “The migrants can request permits to go outside, but we try to keep them safe by keeping them inside.”

Dana Graber Ladek, the IOM chief of mission in Mexico, said her organization continues to oppose MPP on principle, even as it’s working with both governments to ameliorate conditions for those sent back.

“It still has a tremendous amount of negative impacts,” she said. “It’s not how asylum is supposed to work.”

Hernández reported from San Antonio.

By Nick Miroff
Nick Miroff covers immigration enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security for The Washington Post. He was a Post foreign correspondent in Latin America from 2010 to 2017, and has been a staff writer since 2006.

By Arelis Hernández
Arelis Hernández is a Texas-based border correspondent on the national desk working with the immigration team and roving the U.S. southern border. Hernández joined the Post in 2014 to cover politics and government on the local desk after spending four years as a breaking news and crime reporter at the Orlando Sentinel.

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/02/04/biden-mpp-mexico/

The post ‘Remain in Mexico’ is back under Biden, with little resemblance to the Trump version first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The negotiations, which began in the early months of the Biden administration, were aimed at settling claims brought by migrant families that were separated under the “zero tolerance” policy while seeking to enter the U.S. for asylum and other reasons.

But government officials abruptly pulled the plug on all settlement talks on Thursday, Lee Gelernt, a lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union, and one of the lead negotiators told NPR.

Gelernt said the Justice Department did not explain why it was walking away from the talks.

“We can see no reason for this other than this administration does not want to use any political capital to help these children,” Gelernt said in an interview. “History will not judge this decision kindly.”

In a statement, the Department of Justice said the parties have been unable to reach a settlement, but “we remain committed to engaging with the plaintiffs and to bringing justice to the victims of this abhorrent policy.”

The controversial immigration policy was dismantled within Biden’s first week as president

In all, the Trump administration separated more than 5,000 families who crossed into the U.S. without visas. Under the policy adults who entered the U.S. from the southern border were prosecuted for illegal entry. Because children cannot be imprisoned with adults, the young kids were taken into separate federal facilities.

Government reports ultimately found the administration had no clear plan nor had it allocated resources to help reunite parents or guardians with their children when it implemented the zero tolerance enforcement policy. Hundreds of families remain separated, many more say they are still suffering the effects of the separation. More than 100 have brought claims seeking monetary damages from the government, Gelernt said.

Republicans and Democrats appeared united against the draconian policy, calling it a humanitarian failure. President Biden called it a “moral and national shame.” And settlement talks proceeded quietly behind closed doors for several months — until October, when the Wall Street Journal broke the story that financial compensation amounts could reach as high as $450,000 per person in some cases.

At that point, the negotiations became a political liability for Biden and his administration who came under fire by Republicans in Washington.

Lawyers representing families who’d been torn apart, have insisted most settlement amounts would be far lower, But the story generated enormous outrage among GOP members, who tried to link the issue to the soaring number of arrests at the southern border. They argued that giving large cash settlements to migrant families would encourage more illegal immigration.

In a Department of Homeland Security hearing on immigration last month, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said he takes the entire concept of compensation as a personal affront.

“As you can imagine, many Americans think it’s a pretty outrageous idea to offer massive taxpayer funded payments to illegal immigrants who broke our laws,” Grassley told DHS secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, blaming the Biden administration for the current immigration crisis.

Grassley noted that the families of service members who die on active duty receive a tax repayment of $100,000. “Under what circumstances, if any do you think it’s appropriate for an illegal immigrant who broke our laws to receive more money from the government than the family of a fallen service member,” he asked.

Biden administration officials and the president himself were asked frequently about the settlement talks, which appeared likely to become an election-year issue in 2022.

Lawyers representing the families say they’re deeply disappointed and contend everyone who was a victim of the zero tolerance approach deserves recompense, including financial settlements. They also say the government could easily wind up spending even more money fighting these cases than if it had simply reached a settlement.

The Women’s Refugee Commission condemned the decision by the Justice Department to pull out of the negotiations.

“This move is a shameful, profound betrayal of the government’s responsibility to redress the harms of this heinous policy,” Katharina Obser, director of the Migrant Rights and Justice program with the group, said in a statement.

“While the U.S. can never undo what happened, we expected the Biden administration to engage in good faith with efforts for redress and repair,” she said, adding that “the cruelty of intentionally tearing families apart inflicted unspeakable and permanent trauma on children and their parents coming to the U.S. border seeking safety.”

Kathryn Hampton, deputy director of the Physicians for Human Rights Asylum Program, also noted the long term effects of the separation on children. The organization has documented the psychological harms and trauma many have suffered, including PTSD, depression, and anxiety.

“Instead of bowing to right-wing ideologues, the Biden administration should pursue justice and accountability for the deeply traumatized children and parents who endured these atrocious acts perpetrated by the United States government,” Hampton said in a statement.

The Biden administration says it will continue to identify and reunify families that were separated under the Trump administration.

Meanwhile, the ACLU is in negotiations with the administration over other issues, including the possibility of legal status for separated families. Those talks will continue, Gelernt said — but the end of financial negotiations won’t make them any easier.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2021/12/16/1065044185/justice-department-breaks-off-talks-on-compensation-for-separated-families

The post Justice Department breaks off talks on compensation for separated families first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

During her daily news briefing, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that since Sunday, 12 “repatriation flights” had ferried 1,401 undocumented immigrants back home to Haiti.

Psaki said another 3,206 Haitians “have been moved” from their massive makeshift encampment under the Del Rio International Bridge into the custody of US Customs and Border Protection “or to other sectors of the United States border.”

There, Psaki said, they face immediate expulsion, “if possible,” under a federal public-health law, known as Title 42, or else deportation proceedings in US Immigration Court.

“Therefore, there remain less than 5,000 migrants in the Del Rio sector,” Psaki noted.

A Haitian migrant talks to with a Mexican police officer blocking access to the Rio Grande. Felix Marquez/AP

But Psaki’s calculations— which accounted for no more than 9,606 migrants — appeared to dramatically discount an estimate by The Associated Press that there were 15,000 gathered under and around the bridge on Saturday.

If the AP is accurate, that would mean around 5,400 are now unaccounted for — and may have disappeared into the US without notice.

Psaki was pressed on the discrepancy by a Fox News reporter who asked, “Where’s everybody else?”

“I’m happy to get you a more fruitful rundown for you, if helpful, from the Department of Homeland Security,” she answered.

Migrants, most from Haiti, cross the Rio Grande towards Del Rio, Texas, from Ciudad Acuña, Mexico. Felix Marquez/AP

DHS didn’t respond to a request from The Post for additional information.

However, in a Thursday evening appearance on CNN, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas again claimed he did not know how many migrants had been released into the US under direct questioning from host Wolf Blitzer.

“We believe it is a very small percentage of the total that assembled in Del Rio, Texas, and that will be removed,” Mayorkas said.

“Well, what does that mean?” a befuddled Blizter asked. “About 15,000, I have, showed up [in Del Rio]. I take it 1,400 have been sent back to Haiti. What about the rest?”

“Wolf, if it’s 10 percent or 15 percent, I don’t have the precise numbers,” Mayorkas admitted. “I assure you it’s a minority of the individuals … and they are placed in immigration enforcement proceedings, where they are able, where they appear before a judge and if, in fact, they make a valid claim to remain in the United States, and of course, we honor that. And if not, they are removed as well.”

Also Thursday, DHS updated their statistics to note that 1,949 migrants had been flown back to Haiti since Sunday, while 3,901 had been moved to CBP custody or other border sectors. The department estimated that 3,100 migrants remained under the Del Rio bridge, leaving a gap of more than 6,000 between the total number accounted for by DHS and the top-end estimate reported by AP.

On Wednesday, the AP reported that a US official said illegal immigrants nabbed in Del Rio amid the crisis had been released on a “very, very large scale” — possibly reaching into the thousands — and simply told to report to an immigration office within 60 days.

Some were put on buses to El Paso, Laredo and other locations along the Texas border with Mexico, and others were flown to Tucson, Ariz., according to the report.

Meanwhile, Reuters and the Los Angeles Times reported that thousands of the mostly Haitian migrants still in Del Rio had been given color-coded tickets by immigration officials and told to await processing.

Tickets that are blue or yellow — which are issued to families and pregnant women, respectively — will allow holders to enter the United States legally and seek permission to stay, according to the LA Times. But red or green tickets — for single men and single women, respectively — will likely result in a trip back to Haiti.

A boy walks at a migrant camp in Ciudad Acuña. Felix Marquez/AP

Haitian migrant Pedro Fisime, 24, said he received a blue ticket after spending six days in the squalid encampment with his 10-year-old daughter, Reyna.

“It’s a very difficult process for all of us,” he told the LA Times.

“I had faith and I made it to the US,” he said. “You have to try.”

The tickets are numbered — and Border Patrol agents use the digits to summon migrants to buses and vans that will carry them to the airport for flights back to Haiti or for processing and release into the United States, according to the LA Times.

But some migrants who were handed the prized blue and yellow tickets were apparently unaware of their good fortune and instead thought it meant they faced expulsion.

So they headed for the Rio Grande to try to make the treacherous crossing back into Mexico.

Jen Psaki said there have been over 1,400 undocumented immigrants sent back to Haiti since Sunday. Evan Vucci/AP

Another Haitian migrant, Fabricio Jean, told the AP that he made his way from Chile to Del Rio by following detailed instructions that his brother sent to him via the encrypted WhatsApp cellphone application.

Jean said that his brother, who recently made the trip and is currently living in New Jersey, warned him to stay away from areas in Mexico with lots of immigration officials and also wired him money for bus fares.

“You will need about 20,000 pesos (about $1,000 U.S. dollars) for the buses,” the brother reportedly wrote him. “You need to take this bus to this location and then take another bus.”

Source: https://nypost.com/2021/09/23/thousands-of-haitian-migrants-vanish-via-white-houses-math/

The post Thousands of Haitian migrants vanish via White House’s math first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Migrants crossed the Rio Grande between Texas and Mexico with supplies Thursday as they prepared to spend the night under the international bridge connecting Del Rio and Ciudad Acuña. Credit: Jordan Vonderhaar for the Texas Tribune

DEL RIO — Five days after Haitian President Jovenel Moise was assassinated by a group of foreign mercenaries on July 7, 29-year-old Stelin Jean decided to flee the country with his wife and two children — traveling to Bolivia, where many Haitians have arrived recently before starting an arduous overland trek to the United States.

The family was in Panama last month when a 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, destroying thousands of homes and killing more than 2,000 people. Jean said some of his family members were injured in the earthquake, which only increased their sense of urgency to make it to the United States.

“There are people killing each other in Haiti, there’s just no justice,” said Jean, who arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border on Wednesday afternoon after a two-month trek through the jungles of South America and then crossed the Rio Grande at Del Rio to claim asylum. “I just want to live a calm life without any problems, I want to live somewhere where I know there’s justice.”

The family has joined an estimated 12,000 migrants who in recent days have arrived at the border and are now waiting under the Del Rio international bridge, about 150 miles west of San Antonio, to be processed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Most are from Haiti and are seeking asylum in the U.S.

On Friday, Del Rio Mayor Bruno Lozano declared a local state of disaster and said the city is closing the toll booths on the international bridge connecting the city to Ciudad Acuña to halt traffic across the bridge, as a security measure.

The city later released a statement that said “international traffic will continue as normal” and people could be seen going back and forth on the bridge Friday evening. But late Friday, U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced that the port of entry would temporarily shutter.

“This temporary closure and shift is necessary in order for CBP to respond to urgent safety and security needs presented by an influx of migrants into Del Rio and is effective immediately,” the agency said in a statement. “It will advance and protect national interests and help ensure the safety of the traveling public, commercial traffic, and CBP employees and facilities.”

Traffic that normally uses border bridges into Del Rio will be directed 57 miles east to Eagle Pass, federal officials said. They did not indicate how long the Del Rio closures would last.

Lozano said earlier he had requested assistance from the state to help deter more migrants from entering the city. He said the city expects an additional 8,000 migrants to arrive in the coming days.

The sheer numbers arriving so quickly in Del Rio, a city of about 35,000 residents, has local officials worrying about how to feed and house thousands of migrants who for now are being forced to wait in the shade of the bridge.

“Dire circumstances require dire responses,” Lozano said. “There are people having babies down there [under the bridge], there are people collapsing out of the heat. They’re pretty aggressive, rightly so — they’ve been in the heat day after day after day.”

At an appearance in Fort Worth on Friday, Gov. Greg Abbott said the U.S. Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security have told the state that the migrants will be relocated to Arizona, California, and perhaps Laredo. “But one thing that we know for a fact and that is, there’s nothing but uncertainty and indecision by the Biden administration about exactly what they’re going to do,” Abbott said.

Many of the migrants in Del Rio said they began their journey years ago, fleeing Haiti after previous disasters such as the devastating 2010 earthquake.

Junior Pacheco, 38, said he left Haiti for Chile, where he lived for five years before he made his way to the Texas-Mexico border in August. He said that after arriving in Mexico, police asked for his passport as he was exiting a charter bus and never returned it.

“There’s a lot of abuse on the way here. From people to the police, they steal our money, our passports. There are some people who get stranded on the way,” he said in a phone interview from Ciudad Acuña, where he was buying food, water, and a tent so his family could have somewhere to sleep.

Migrants cross the Rio Grande between the United States and Mexico in Ciudad Acuña, across the border from Del Rio. Credit: Jordan Vonderhaar for the Texas Tribune

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Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., in a video interview made public this week doubled down on her calls to defund key immigration agencies, while warning against efforts by the Biden administration to increase technology at the border.

Tlaib, a key member of the “Squad,” which has called for looser immigration restrictions and the abolition of agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), spoke to Just Futures Law – a legal group that fights for “a future beyond deportation and criminalization.” The full interview was uploaded online on Wednesday.

REPUBLICANS GRILL MAYORKAS ON LACK OF FUNDING FOR BORDER PATROL AGENTS, WALL

Tlaib was asked about the push by the Biden administration to increase money spent on border technology for Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) border request includes $665 million in investments toward modernizing land ports of entry and $47 million to invest in detection capabilities in addition to investments in border surveillance technology.

But activists have expressed concern that such funding, along with other methods like facial recognition and DNA testing, are used to ultimately prevent migrants from entering the U.S. Tlaib was asked how they could “turn the tide” at the congressional level on the funding for such methods.

“Look, the simple answer to that question is we must eliminate funding for CBP, ICE and their parent organization, DHS,” she said.

BORDER PATROL ARRESTS SEX OFFENDERS, MS-13 GANG MEMBERS OVER JULY 4 WEEKEND IN RIO GRANDE VALLEY

“Time after time we have seen it as advocates on the ground, as human services agencies on the ground continue to see over and over again, that these agencies are inept to humanely guiding migrants through our immigration system and instead they further continue to terrorize migrant communities located within our communities,” she said.

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As many as 3,000 troops will be deployed along the U.S. border with Mexico until Sept. 30, 2022, stretching the military’s mission there into a fourth year, the chief Pentagon spokesman said Tuesday.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin approved a request to extend the mission that supports the Department of Homeland Security along the southwest border, Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby told reporters. Austin signed the request June 23, according to a defense official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Austin authorized up to 3,000 troops to serve on the mission, which is down from the 4,000 approved to serve at the southwest border for fiscal 2021, Kirby said. Deployments will continue to be staffed primarily by National Guard troops working in a federal status under the command and control of U.S. Northern Command, the defense official said.

About 3,800 troops are deployed now to the southwest border in support of U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents. The troops are a mix of active-duty service members and National Guard troops from nearly two dozen states. Their work includes helping to identify, monitor and analyze patterns of unauthorized entry and alert Border Patrol agents.

The Defense Department has spent more than $840 million on the mission so far, according to a February report from the Government Accountability Office.

Former President Donald Trump first ordered National Guard troops to the southern border in April 2018 and added active-duty personnel to the mission about six months later.

When President Joe Biden took office in January, he ended construction of a physical border wall initiated by Trump but he has kept the troops in place.

Following the extension of the mission, governors in Ohio and North Dakota announced approval to send Guard troops on the federal deployment.

These federal missions are separate from state-level missions ongoing in Arizona and Texas, where Republican governors disagree with the way that the Biden administration is handling border security.

Both states have activated hundreds of Guard members to serve at the border in support of state law enforcement. South Dakota and Arkansas announced last month plans to deploy Guard troops to support Texas’ state-led mission.

Source: https://www.stripes.com/theaters/us/2021-07-06/us-mexico-border-troops-immigration-crisis-2071343.html

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Vice President Kamala Harris will visit El Paso on Friday. Credit: REUTERS/Carlos Barria

Vice President Kamala Harris is set to visit El Paso on June 25, her chief spokesperson confirmed Wednesday in a statement.

There are still no exact details or agenda for the visit, but according to the statement, the goal is to “address the root causes of migration from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.”

The vice president was just in Guatemala and Mexico earlier this month in her first trip overseas since taking office. The trip was met with a whirlwind of criticism from all sides of the political aisle. Conservatives, particularly U.S. Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn of Texas, accused Harris of having her attention set on the wrong border, while progressives lambasted Harris after a video of her urging Guatemalan migrants to not come to the United States went viral — and questioned why Harris, a daughter of immigrants herself, would make such a remark.

The vice president will be accompanied by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the statement confirmed. It’s her first visit to the border since becoming vice president.

Conservatives have been pushing Harris to visit the border for weeks as they raise alarm over what they have described as a crisis. Gov. Greg Abbott has blamed the Biden administration’s immigration policies for the increase of immigrants on the state’s southern border, saying in an earlier disaster declaration that new federal policies have paved the way for “dangerous gangs and cartels, human traffickers, and deadly drugs like fentanyl to pour into our communities.” He announced earlier this month that Texas will take steps to build its own border wall.

In a statement issued Wednesday, Abbott called Harris the “Border Czar,” and touted Operation Lone Star — an initiative to amp upstate law enforcement presence at the border.

Cornyn said in a statement Wednesday, before the trip was announced, that any reluctance to do so is “willful ignorance.”

“Despite what Kamala Harris said in Central America when she said, ‘Do not come,’ the people who are coming are talking to friends and relatives in the United States, they see what’s happening on TV, and the cartels are whispering in their ear,” Cornyn said.

Cruz accused the Biden-Harris administration of being “the last mile of a human trafficking and illegal drug network that cartels are exploiting.”

“It only took more than half a million illegal immigrants entering the United States, more than 400,000 pounds of drugs seized, 19 U.S. Senators traveling to the southern border and 92 days after being appointed border crisis czar for Kamala Harris to visit the southern border,” he said in a statement.

Meanwhile, President Joe Biden has disputed the idea of a crisis on the border, as NBC News reported, and has said that any ongoing problems at the border are to be blamed on the Trump administration for refusing to cooperate during the presidential transition period.

Harris is not the only major politician making news for planning a visit down to the border. Former President Donald Trump plans on touring Texas’ southern border with Abbott.

The Department of Homeland Security did not return any requests for comment.

Source: https://www.texastribune.org/2021/06/23/kamal-harris-el-paso-border/

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