Tag Archives: El Salvador

Migrants rush to enter Mexico ahead of security crackdown demanded by Trump

Migrants from Central America cross the Rio Bravo river to enter illegally into the United States to turn themselves in to request for asylum in El Paso, Texas, U.S., as seen from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico June 11, 2019. Picture taken June 11, 2019. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez

By Hugh Bronstein

CIUDAD HIDALGO, Mexico (Reuters) – Central American migrants eager to beat a crackdown by Mexico on its southern border with Guatemala scrambled into the country on Thursday as the government prepared to send thousands of National Guard members to plug gaps in the porous frontier.

Mexico has agreed with the United States to demonstrate by late July that it can contain a surge in U.S.-bound migrants, following a threat from U.S. President Donald Trump to impose tariffs on Mexican goods if it failed to do so.

Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said this week that Mexico would beef up control of its southern border, including sending 6,000 members of the National Guard. The deployment was due to begin on Wednesday though witnesses saw no signs of the deployment.

Migrants from Central America run towards the Rio Bravo river to cross and enter illegally into the United States to turn themselves in to request for asylum in El Paso, Texas, U.S., as seen from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico June 12, 2019. Picture taken June 12, 2019. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez

Migrants from Central America run towards the Rio Bravo river to cross and enter illegally into the United States to turn themselves in to request for asylum in El Paso, Texas, U.S., as seen from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico June 12, 2019. Picture taken June 12, 2019. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez

As dawn broke on Thursday, a family of Honduran migrants floated across a narrow crossing of the Suchiate River from Guatemala on a raft and staggered onto Mexican soil.

“They told us that they were deploying the National Guard,” said Melvin Ochoa, 28, carrying his 20-month-old daughter. Beside him was his heavily pregnant wife. “It made us hurry. I’m pushing to continue faster so they won’t catch us.”

The trip was especially risky for Ochoa’s wife who was only one month shy of giving birth. She declined to give her name.

“But the risks at home were worse,” Ochoa said, explaining that the family had fled loan sharks affiliated with a criminal gang who demanded money even after they had paid them back.

“If not, they were going to kill us.”

Behind them, the steady daily traffic of the river continued unabated, with no Mexican official in sight. Migration officials remained in the shadow of immigration posts on a bridge linking the two countries.

Improvised rafts made of planks of wood floating on giant inner-tubes carried black-market Corona beer, coffee and other contraband toward Guatemala. Half a dozen more floated toward Mexico crowded with Central Americans fleeing gang violence and poverty.

It was business at usual too at immigration checkpoints along the highway north.

“We haven’t seen any increase,” said a police officer at a checkpoint, when asked about any build-up in security forces. He asked not to be identified because he lacked permission to speak to the press.

Mexico and the United States brokered an immigration agreement last week to prevent Washington from imposing tariffs starting at 5% on Mexican goods. The Mexican government has agreed to consider changing its migration laws after 45 days if it proves unable to stem the flow of people.

The standoff over the border has piled pressure on Mexico’s leftist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. He has called for national unity, describing the tariff threat as unfair, but vowing to avoid confrontation with the United States, Mexico’s largest trading partner.

Threatening to raise tariffs on Mexican imports as high as 25%, Trump wants Mexico to accept asylum seekers as part of his effort to slow the flow of migrants and to relieve pressure on stretched U.S. border and immigration authorities.

Mexico in December agreed to start taking in mostly Central American asylum seekers while their cases are being heard in the United States and absorbed about 10,000 during the first few months of this year, according to the Mexican government.

However, under the deal struck last week, tens of thousands could be sent back to Mexico before the end of this year, putting increased pressure on Mexican migration authorities, said Deputy Interior Minister Alejandro Encinas.

“This has become a national problem,” he told Reuters.

‘AS FAR AS GOD PERMITS’

Mexico sends around 80% of its exports to the United States so any move by Trump to impose levies on its goods would have serious repercussions for the economy, which is already struggling after contracting in the first quarter.

Given that the United States had never managed to properly seal its own southern border, the chance of Mexico doing any better were extremely remote, said Andres Rozental, a former Mexican deputy foreign minister responsible for North America.

“We’re never going to be able to get what presumably Mr. Trump wants in 45 days,” Rozental told Reuters.

Complicating the deployment of the militarized police force along the border is the fact that the National Guard was only formally created a few weeks ago, and Lopez Obrador’s six-month-old administration is still finding its feet.

For some migrants, those issues are of small consequence.

“We have no plan. Only to go forward, as far as God permits,” said Antonio Hernandez, 29, stepping off another raft at dawn with his wife and 2-year-old son. Anxious and exhausted from days of travel since they fled El Salvador, they hustled on.

 

(Reporting by Hugh Bronstein; Additional reporting and writing by Dave Graham and Delphine Schrank in Mexico City; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Cynthia Osterman)

Mexico prepares for arrival of next Central American migrant caravan

FILE PHOTO: Migrants, part of a caravan of thousands from Central America trying to reach the United States, leave a temporary shelter voluntarily, which is to be closed by Mexican authorities for sanitary reasons, in Tijuana Mexico January 5, 2019. REUTERS/Jorge Duenes

By Diego Oré

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexican authorities will meet with Central American officials to prepare for the arrival of a planned new caravan of migrants headed to the United States next week.

The head of Mexico’s immigration office, Tonatiuh Guillen, left on Wednesday on a trip to El Salvador and Honduras to meet with his counterparts and other authorities, said Interior Ministry spokesman Hector Gandini.

Mexico hopes to discourage a mass exodus from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, and wants Central Americans who decide to migrate north to do so in an orderly way and through legal ports of entry.

“The doors to Mexico are open to anyone who wants to enter in an orderly fashion,” Gandini told Reuters in a telephone interview. “But whoever wants to come in illegally will be deported.”

Previous Central American caravans became a flashpoint in the debate over U.S. immigration policy.

That was intensified by the recent deaths of two migrant children in American custody and a partial U.S. government shutdown over U.S. President Donald Trump’s demand for $5.7 billion in funding for a wall along the border with Mexico.

There are 12 legal ports of entry for Central Americans on Mexico’s southern border, but Mexican authorities have identified an additional 370 illegal points of entry on that frontier, Interior Minister Olga Sanchez said this week.

Mexico borders in the south with Guatemala and Belize.

The illegal entry points will be “monitored and controlled to avoid undocumented access of people to our territory,” Sanchez said.

Guatemala’s deputy foreign minister, Pablo Cesar Garcia, met with Mexican authorities on Tuesday to discuss the caravan and to “provide all the necessary support to the migrants,” said Guatemalan Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Marta Larra.

“In Honduras, they kill us,” read an appeal circulating on social media for people to assemble in the violent Honduran city of San Pedro Sula next Tuesday to start the long trek north to the United States.

While other social media posts invite people to leave from nearby Santa Barbara on Jan. 20, U.S. authorities hoped to dissuade Central Americans from making the journey.

“The risks of illegal immigration are serious. Don’t waste your time and money on a trip destined to fail. The road is long and very dangerous. Thousands of Hondurans who participated in the caravan came back sorry,” Heide Fulton, the U.S chargé d’affaires to Honduras, said on Twitter on Wednesday.

(Reporting by Diego Ore; Additional reporting by Gustavo Palencia in Tegucigalpa, Sofia Menchu in Guatemala City, Nelson Renteria in San Salvador and Lizbeth Diaz in Tijuana, Mexico; Writing by Anthony Esposito; Editing by Peter Cooney)

New migrant caravan departs Salvadoran capital for U.S.

People walk in a caravan of migrants departing from El Salvador en route to the United States, in San Salvador, El Salvador, October 31, 2018. REUTERS/Jose Cabezas

By Nelson Renteria

SAN SALVADOR (Reuters) – About 2,000 migrants began walking north from El Salvador’s capital on Wednesday, the latest of several groups trying to reach the United States, even as President Donald Trump increases pressure to halt the flow of people.

The migrants departed in two groups, including men and women pushing strollers and others with children on their shoulders. On Sunday, a separate group comprising about 300 people set off for the U.S. border from the Salvadoran capital.

People walk in a caravan of migrants departing from El Salvador en route to the United States, in San Salvador, El Salvador, October 31, 2018. REUTERS/Jose Cabezas

People walk in a caravan of migrants departing from El Salvador en route to the United States, in San Salvador, El Salvador, October 31, 2018. REUTERS/Jose Cabezas

A caravan estimated to number at least 3,500 people, which left Honduras in mid-October and is now in southern Mexico, has become a major issue in U.S. congressional elections on Nov. 6.

The bulk of migrants caught trying to enter the United States illegally via Mexico come from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. Many make the dangerous journey north to escape high levels of poverty and violence in their homelands.

The United States is in the process of sending 5,200 troops to its southern border as part of Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration. The prospect has so far not discouraged people from leaving El Salvador.

“It scares us a little. But since we’re seeing a ton of people going together, we can help one another to cross,” said Jose Machado, one of the migrants departing San Salvador, carrying a backpack stuffed with clothing and toiletries.

Trump, who has threatened to slash U.S. aid to Central America and close the U.S. border with Mexico, said in a tweet on Wednesday that Mexico needs to keep up efforts to discourage the migrants, who he described as “tough fighters.”

A clash at the Mexico-Guatemala border on Sunday left one migrant dead and several law enforcement officers injured.

“Mexican soldiers hurt, were unable, or unwilling to stop Caravan. Should stop them before they reach our Border, but won’t!” Trump said in a Tweet.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders on Wednesday praised Mexico’s actions to slow the movement of people, but told Fox News: “They can do more.”

Police estimated the two groups leaving San Salvador numbered around 1,000 each. One cohort left around dawn, followed by a second later in the morning.

Some waved Salvadoran flags as motorists honked in support and shouted, “God bless you.”

(Reporting By Nelson Renteria, Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu in Washington, Writing by Daina Beth Solomon; Editing by Dave Graham and Alistair Bell)

U.S.-bound Central American migrants on the move in Mexico

Migrants, part of a caravan of thousands from Central America en route to the United States, take a shower in the Mapastepec city center, Mexico October 24, 2018. REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino

By Delphine Schrank and Ana Isabel Martinez

MAPASTEPEC, Mexico/MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Central American migrants clustered for the night on Wednesday in a southern Mexico town after advancing on their trek toward the United States, despite Mexico’s vows to hinder their progress under pressure from the Trump administration.

Thousands of men, women and children, mostly from Honduras, shuffled throughout the afternoon into the town of Mapastepec in Chiapas state, still more than 1,100 miles (1,770 km) from the U.S. border.

A migrant woman rests roadside with her child while traveling with a caravan of thousands from Central America en route to the United States as they make their way to Mapastepec from Huixtla, Mexico October 24, 2018. REUTERS/Adrees Latif

A migrant woman rests roadside with her child while traveling with a caravan of thousands from Central America en route to the United States as they make their way to Mapastepec from Huixtla, Mexico October 24, 2018. REUTERS/Adrees Latif

As nightfall came and rain began to pour, they camped out on sidewalks in the small town, wrapping knapsacks in plastic and huddling beneath awnings.

Their trek has drawn the ire of U.S. President Donald Trump, who has used the migrant caravan to fire up support for his Republican party in Nov. 6 congressional elections.

It has also prompted Washington to put pressure on the Mexican government to halt the migrants’ progress.

The caravan, which began as a march of a few hundred people from the crime-wracked Honduran city of San Pedro Sula on Oct. 13, swelled into the thousands as it was joined by migrants from El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala.

Mexican immigration authorities have told the migrants they will not be able to cross illegally into the United States.

Alex Mensing of Pueblo Sin Fronteras, a group that organized a previous migrant caravan that angered Trump in April, said on Wednesday the current caravan is comprised of about 10,000 people.

Pueblo Sin Fronteras is accompanying the caravan, which Mensing forecast would fragment in due course.

Migrants, part of a caravan of thousands from Central America en route to the United States, are seen dancing in the Mapastepec city center, Mexico October 24, 2018. REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino

Migrants, part of a caravan of thousands from Central America en route to the United States, are seen dancing in the Mapastepec city center, Mexico October 24, 2018. REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino

“It’s very unlikely that 10,000 people will arrive together at a border city between Mexico and the United States,” he told a conference call with reporters.

“There will be people who stay in Mexico, there will be people who go to different borders because everyone has their own plan and different support where they have family members.”

Migrants began departing Huixtla in the wee hours of the morning, fanning out for about a mile and half on the road toward Mapastepec. They walked in flip flops and old sneakers. Many hitched rides from hundreds of cars, trucks and public transportation.

A Chiapas church group said they cooked for a full day, then drove over an hour from the mountains to reach the caravan, where they handed out coffee, sugary bread and tamales, cornmeal patties stuffed with meat and vegetables.

Every time they stopped to serve, migrants flung their small packs aboard their pickup, hoping to catch a ride.

“No, no,” church volunteer Liz Magail Rodriguez said, pointing to the containers of food. “With these tamales, you’ll have energy to walk all day.”

On Wednesday, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro called U.S. Vice President Mike Pence “crazy” and “extremist” for accusing his government of financing the caravan. Pence said on Tuesday that the group was “financed by Venezuela,” without providing evidence.

Mexican authorities have tried to walk a fine line between responding to Trump’s demands to close its borders and respecting migrants’ rights.

Mexico’s interior ministry said in a statement on Wednesday evening that about 3,630 people are part of the migrant caravan in Mexico that was advancing from Huixtla, around 30 miles (50 km) north of the Guatemalan border, to Mapastepec.

Reuters could not independently verify how many people were in that group.

A separate group of least 1,000 migrants, mostly Hondurans, has been moving slowly through Guatemala toward Mexico. Some media have put the number above 2,000.

(Additional reporting by Jose Cortes in Mapastepec, Corina Pons and Vivian Sequera in Caracas; Writing by Michael O’Boyle and Daina Beth Solomon Editing by Jonathan Oatis, Tom Brown, Toni Reinhold)

Trump vows to cut Central America aid, calls migrant caravan an emergency

Central American migrants walk along the highway near the border with Guatemala, as they continue their journey trying to reach the U.S., in Tapachula, Mexico October 21, 2018. REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino

By Susan Heavey

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump said on Monday he has told the U.S. military and border authorities that a migrant caravan heading toward the United States from Central America represented a national emergency, as he vowed to cut aid to the region.

“Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador were not able to do the job of stopping people from leaving their country and coming illegally to the U.S. We will now begin cutting off, or substantially reducing, the massive foreign aid routinely given to them,” Trump wrote in a series of posts on Twitter.

Since Trump became president last year, the United States has already moved to sharply decrease aid to Central America.

In 2016, the United States provided some $131.2 million in aid to Guatemala, $98.3 million to Honduras, and $67.9 million to El Salvador, according to official U.S. data. By next year, those sums were projected to fall to $69.4 million for Guatemala, $65.8 million for Honduras, and $45.7 million in the case of El Salvador. Combined, the cuts amount to a reduction of almost 40 percent for the three nations.

Thousands of mostly Honduran migrants crowded into the Mexican border city of Tapachula over the weekend after trekking on foot from the Guatemalan border, defying threats by Trump that he will close the U.S.-Mexico border if they advanced, as well as warnings from the Mexican government.

Mexican police in riot gear shadowed the caravan’s arrival along a southern highway but did not impede the migrants’ journey.

“Sadly, it looks like Mexico’s Police and Military are unable to stop the Caravan heading to the Southern Border of the United States,” Trump wrote in a tweet, adding: “I have alerted Border Patrol and Military that this is a National Emergy.”

Trump, who has taken a hard line toward illegal immigration since taking office last year, gave no other details about his administration’s actions.

Representatives for the White House and the U.S. Border Patrol did not immediately reply to requests for comment. Representatives for the Pentagon and the U.S. State Department referred questions to the White House.

Trump and his fellow Republicans have sought to elevate the caravan as a campaign issue ahead of the Nov. 6 congressional elections in which his party is fighting to maintain control of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.

Congress has failed to fully fund Trump’s proposed wall along the U.S.-Mexican border, which he has argued is needed to combat illegal immigration.

NATIONAL GUARD AT BORDER

In April, Trump raised the prospect of sending military forces to the U.S.-Mexico border to stop illegal immigrants, raising questions in Congress and among legal experts about troop deployments on U.S. soil.

A 19th-century federal law restricts using the Army and other main branches of the military for civilian law enforcement on American soil, unless specifically authorized by Congress. But the military can provide support services to law enforcement and has done so on occasion since the 1980s.

Later in April, Trump and Defense Secretary James Mattis authorized up to 4,000 National Guard personnel to help the Department of Homeland Security secure the border if four Southwestern U.S. states.

Some specific statutes authorize the president to deploy troops within the United States for riot control or relief efforts after natural disasters.

Trump, who has made immigration a central part of his platform, earlier threatened to halt aid to the region, and potentially close the U.S. border with Mexico with the help of the military if the migrants’ march is not stopped.

Trump travels to Texas, a key border state, later on Monday to campaign for Republican U.S. Senator Ted Cruz. Cruz, who challenged Trump for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, is seeking re-election.

In a tweet on Monday, Republican U.S. Senator Marco Rubio wrote: “While unlawful migration to U.S. from Central America is caused by real crisis, the migrant ‘caravan’ was manufactured by supporters of a radical agenda who are using poor and desperate people to try and embarrass and undermine the U.S. in the region. But it’s going to backfire on them.”

(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Makini Brice; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Trump warns Mexico on migrant caravan, threatens to close border

Honduran migrants, part of a caravan trying to reach the U.S., walk on a bridge during their travel in Guatemala City, Guatemala October 18, 2018. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido

By Susan Heavey

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump threatened to deploy the military and close the southern U.S. border on Thursday if Mexico did not move to halt large groups of migrants headed for the United States from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

“I must, in the strongest of terms, ask Mexico to stop this onslaught – and if unable to do so I will call up the U.S. Military and CLOSE OUR SOUTHERN BORDER!” Trump wrote on Twitter.

Trump threatened to withhold aid to the region as a caravan with several thousand Honduran migrants traveled this week through Guatemala to Mexico in hopes of crossing into the United States to escape violence and poverty in Central America.

Trump’s threat came as U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo prepared to travel later in the day to Panama and then Mexico City, where he was to meet with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto on Friday.

Mexico’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump, who has sought to curtail immigration and build a border wall on the Mexican border, this week threatened to halt aid if Central American governments did not act.

Frustrated by Congress’ failure to fully fund his proposed wall at the border with Mexico, Trump in April ordered National Guard personnel to help the Department of Homeland Security secure the border in four southwestern U.S. states.

In a string of tweets on Thursday, Trump also said the issue was more important to him than the new trade deal with Mexico to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement pact.

“The assault on our country at our Southern Border, including the Criminal elements and DRUGS pouring in, is far more important to me, as President, than Trade or the USMCA. Hopefully Mexico will stop this onslaught at their Northern Border,” Trump wrote. He was referring to the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which is awaiting ratification.

More Honduran migrants tried to join a caravan of several thousand trekking through Guatemala on Wednesday, defying calls by authorities not to make the journey. The caravan has been growing steadily since it left the violent Honduran city of San Pedro Sula on Saturday.

Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales said on Wednesday his government dismissed threatened constraints placed on foreign aid.

He said he had spoken with Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez about ensuring the migrants who want to return home can do so safely.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Jeffrey Benkoe)

Judge bars U.S. from ending protections for immigrants from four countries

Paint is seen on cars before members of the Teamsters Union participate in a tractor trailer caravan surrounding the LA Metro Detention Center in support of port truck drivers and others threatened by deportation if the courts or congress don't stop the termination of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) in Los Angeles, California, U.S. October 3, 2018. REUTERS/Kyle Grillot

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. federal judge in California barred the Trump administration on Wednesday from implementing a plan to end temporary protections for more than 300,000 immigrants in the United States from El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Sudan.

U.S. District Judge Edward M. Chen issued a preliminary injunction in a suit brought by a number of immigrants with temporary protected status, or TPS.

The TPS designation offers protection from deportation to immigrants already in the United States, including those who entered illegally, from countries affected by natural disasters, civil conflicts, and other problems.

The government has failed to establish any real harm if “the status quo (which has been in existence for as long as two decades) is maintained during the pendency of this litigation,” Chen wrote in the order.

“Indeed, if anything, Plaintiffs and amici have established without dispute that local and national economies will be hurt if hundreds of thousands of TPS beneficiaries are uprooted and removed,” he said.

There are more than 263,000 TPS beneficiaries from El Salvador, 58,000 from Haiti, 5,000 from Nicaragua and 1,000 from Sudan, according to court documents.

The Trump administration has shown a deep skepticism toward the temporary protected status program and has moved to revoke the special status afforded to thousands of immigrants from a number of countries, including the four named in the suit.

Salvadoran immigrants covered by TPS will lose their protected status in September 2019, those from Haiti in July 2019, Nicaraguan immigrants in January 2019 and Sudanese immigrants in November 2019.

(Reporting by Mohammad Zargham; Editing by Paul Tait)

Man deported six times charged with murder in California bludgeonings

Ramon Escobar, 47, appears in a booking photo provided by the Harris County Sheriff's Office in Houston, Texas, U.S., September 27, 2018. Harris County Sheriff's Office/Handout via REUTERS

By Steve Gorman and Alex Dobuzinskis

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A man who police said fled to California from Texas after being questioned in the disappearance of two relatives was charged on Wednesday in Los Angeles with bludgeoning eight men, three fatally, in a string of attacks aimed mostly at homeless victims.

Ramon Alberto Escobar, 47, an El Salvador native and convicted burglar who has been repeatedly deported from the United States, was arrested on Monday after he allegedly clubbed a sleeping man in the head with bolt-cutters in the ocean-front city of Santa Monica, authorities said.

Seven other men were similarly attacked in Santa Monica and Los Angeles earlier this month, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.

Police have said one victim was sleeping under a pier after a night of fishing and that most of the rest of the victims were homeless, including three men battered with a baseball bat in downtown Los Angeles on Sept. 16.

Two of those victims and the man attacked beneath the pier died of their injuries. Some survivors were left in a coma.

On Wednesday, the district attorney’s office formally charged Escobar with three counts of murder, five counts of attempted murder and four counts of robbery. If convicted of murder, he faces a minimum sentence of life without parole.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials said Tuesday that Escobar had been deported back to El Salvador six times between 1977 and 2011 and has six felony convictions for burglary and illegal re-entry. Police have said he spent five years in a Texas prison for burglary from 1995 to 2000.

Escobar in 2016 filed an appeal of his immigration case, which U.S. courts granted in December of that year, and he was released from ICE custody on an “order of supervision” in January 2017, ICE spokesperson Paige Hughes said by email.

Escobar, now jailed without bond, briefly appeared in Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday, but the arraignment was postponed until Nov. 8. No plea was entered.

Judge Gustavo Sztraicher granted a defense motion barring public dissemination of the defendant’s image, including by photograph or courtroom sketch drawing, so as not to prejudice potential witnesses who might identify him for prosecutors.

Escobar appeared expressionless and said nothing except to answer, “Yes, sir,” when asked if he agreed to the postponement.

Defense lawyers declined to speak to reporters.

Meanwhile, police in Houston said Escobar was a “person of interest” in the investigation into the disappearance of an aunt and uncle with whom Escobar lived before they were reported missing in late August by other relatives.

The aunt’s van was later found burned and abandoned in Galveston, Texas, according to Houston police spokesman Kese Smith.

Escobar was questioned by Houston homicide detectives on Aug. 30, but they lacked probable cause to detain him at the time, Smith told Reuters on Wednesday, adding that Houston detectives would seek to “re-interview” Escobar in California.

Hayes said Escobar “fled” Texas by car soon after he was questioned in Houston, arriving in Los Angeles on Sept. 5. The first attack police linked to him occurred three days later.

(Reporting by Steve Gorman and Alex Dobuzinskis; Additional reporting by Gina Cherelus in New York; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Lisa Shumaker)

U.S. reaches agreement over separated immigrant families

FILE PHOTO - Tents are seen at a tent encampment behind a border fence near the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) port of entry in Tornillo, Texas, U.S. September 12, 2018. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Trump administration has reached a settlement stemming from the separation of immigrant children from their parents at the U.S. border that lets some 1,000 people affected by the policy apply again for U.S. asylum after previously being turned down.

The settlement, detailed in court documents late on Wednesday, represented a victory for rights groups that challenged President Donald Trump’s contentious “zero tolerance” policy toward illegal immigrants entering the United States.

The settlement, which still needs a judge’s approval, gives parents and children of immigrants a second chance to apply for asylum after U.S. authorities previously rejected their claims that they faced “credible fear of persecution or torture” if sent back to their home countries.

While about 2,500 children and parents were affected by the family separation that Trump later abandoned, more than 1,000 people will be eligible to apply again for asylum under the settlement, according to Muslim Advocates, one of the rights groups that sued the administration.

Under the plan, the administration said that while it did not plan to return any of the hundreds of parents who have already been deported, it would consider individual cases in which that may be warranted.

Trump’s “zero-tolerance” immigration policy was aimed at discouraging illegal immigration, but the family separations and the detention of thousands of children, mostly from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, prompted widespread condemnation. Trump ended the practice of family separations in June.

The settlement arose from three lawsuits brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, Muslim Advocates and the Hogan Lovells law firm, among others.

One lawsuit alleged that parents were suffering extreme trauma from the forced separation of their children and therefore failed “credible fear” interviews, which were their only opportunity to avoid expedited removal from the United States.

Under the settlement, these parents will now be able to submit additional evidence and testimony to make their case.

Sirine Shebaya, an attorney for Muslim Advocates, called the agreement a significant victory for the parents. “They will finally have a real chance to be heard and to secure safety and stability for themselves and their families,” Shebaya said.

In May, Trump had sought to prosecute all adults crossing the border without authorization, including those traveling with children, but ended the family separations the next month.

Immigrants who choose not to agree to the settlement would be “promptly removed to their country of origin,” according to the agreement put before U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw in San Diego.

On Wednesday, the New York Times reported that the overall number of detained migrant children reached a total of 12,800 this month, citing data from members of Congress. Most of those children crossed the border alone, without their parents, the Times reported.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Will Dunham)

Migrants from caravan in limbo as U.S. says border crossing full

A group of members of a migrant caravan from Central America and their supporters look through the U.S.-Mexico border wall at Border Field State Park before making an asylum request in San Diego, California, April 29, 2018. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

By Delphine Schrank

TIJUANA, Mexico (Reuters) – About 50 people from a Central American migrant caravan including women, children and transgender individuals tried to seek U.S. asylum on Sunday but were not allowed to cross the Mexico border because officials said the facility was full.

Wearing white arm-bands to distinguish themselves from others crossing at the San Ysidro checkpoint near San Diego, some of the asylum seekers waved good-bye to family members who made a difficult decision to stay behind in Mexico.

About 20 people in the group were able to reach the final fence at the busy crossing, where they were watched by armed U.S. border guards who did not immediately open the gate.

“We have reached capacity at the San Ysidro port of entry,” said Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) Commissioner Kevin McAleenan in a statement on Sunday, adding that the immigrants “may need to wait in Mexico.”

It was not immediately clear whether the group would be turned back or allowed in later. By sunset the tired migrants had decided to hunker down there, apparently with no bedding beyond the scant possessions they had with them.

Members of a caravan of migrants from Central America climb up the border fence between Mexico and the U.S., as a part of a demonstration prior to preparations for an asylum request in the U.S., in Tijuana, Mexico April 29, 2018. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido

Members of a caravan of migrants from Central America climb up the border fence between Mexico and the U.S., as a part of a demonstration prior to preparations for an asylum request in the U.S., in Tijuana, Mexico April 29, 2018. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido

“We’ve been waiting so long that it doesn’t really matter whether it’s today, tomorrow or when they let us in,” said Irineo Mujica, director of Pueblo Sin Fronteras, an advocacy group that organized the caravan since its starting point in southern Mexico a month ago.

At one point in early April the caravan gathered 1,500 immigrants from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. It has drawn the wrath of President Donald Trump, who ordered immigration officials to be zealous in enforcing rules to stop unlawful entry by caravan members.

More migrants from the caravan, which numbered around 400 people by the time it reached Tijuana, also planned to seek asylum. About 100 set up an open air camp in a small square on the Mexican side by the San Ysidro pedestrian bridge, saying they would stay there until they were allowed through.

With no shelter, they laid out towels and blankets on the cold concrete.

“I’M NERVOUS. I’M AFRAID”

The mood was somber following a grueling 2,000-mile (3,200-km) trek to the border. U.S. immigration lawyers had warned the migrants of the low odds for winning asylum and the likelihood of detention, separation from relatives and deportation.

“I’m nervous. I’m afraid,” said Linda Sonigo, 40, walking solemnly toward the U.S. gate with her two-year-old granddaughter in her arms. “I’m afraid they’ll separate us,” she said, motioning to her two children and grandchild.

U.S. officials do not usually separate children from parents seeking asylum, although immigration advocates have reported instances of it happening. Families often spend less time in detention than other groups.

After U.S. border officials said the check point was full, organizers of the caravan put forward what they called the “most vulnerable cases” to cross the border first, including children under threat and transgender people who say they face persecution in Central America.

Sonigo said her family was fleeing gang violence in El Salvador. Others in the group who decided their cases were not strong enough to have a good shot at asylum tearfully said farewell to relatives they may not see again for years.

Asylum seekers must demonstrate a well-founded fear of persecution at home, and the overwhelming majority of those from Central America are denied refuge in the United States.

After making a claim, asylum seekers are usually kept in detention centers. Women with young children generally spend less time locked up and are released to await their hearings.

People in Mexico climb the border wall fence as a caravan of migrants and supporters reached the United States-Mexico border near San Diego, California, U.S., April 29, 2018. REUTERS/Mike Blake

People in Mexico climb the border wall fence as a caravan of migrants and supporters reached the United States-Mexico border near San Diego, California, U.S., April 29, 2018. REUTERS/Mike Blake

Those denied asylum are generally deported to their home countries.

Death threats from local gangs, the murder of family members, retaliatory rape and political persecution prompted members of the caravan to flee, members of the group have told Reuters.

McAleenan said the border patrol would communicate with Mexican authorities about capacity at San Ysidro, a move reminiscent of an ad hoc system created to manage an influx of Haitians two years ago, when the U.S. border agency set daily quotas for immigration interviews.

U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen said earlier this week that the caravan migrants should seek asylum in Mexico.

U.S. border authorities said Saturday that some people associated with the caravan had already been caught trying to slip through the fence and encouraged the rest to report to authorities.

(Reporting by Delphine Schrank; writing by Frank Jack Daniel; editing by Phil Berlowitz, Cynthia Osterman and Darren Schuettler)