Tag Archives: Illegal Immigration

U.S. immigration arrests up nearly 40 percent under Trump

President Donald Trump gestures as he addresses the graduating class of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy during commencement ceremonies in New London, Connecticut, U.S. May 17, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

By Mica Rosenberg

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. arrests of suspected illegal immigrants rose by nearly 40 percent in the first 100 days of Donald Trump’s presidency, following executive orders that broadened the scope of who could be targeted for immigration violations, according to government data released on Wednesday.

The acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Thomas Homan said that arrests by his agency jumped to 41,318 between January 22 of this year and the end of April, up from 30,028 arrests in roughly the same period last year.

Of those arrested almost two-thirds had criminal convictions. But there was also a significant jump – of more than 150 percent – in the number of immigrants not convicted of further crimes arrested by ICE: 10,800 since the beginning of the year compared to 4,200 non-criminal arrests in the same period in 2016.

That increase is a result of recent guidance given by Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly to implement Trump’s executive orders on interior immigration enforcement and border security signed on Jan. 25, just days after the Republican president took office.

“Those that enter the country illegally, they do violate the law, that is a criminal act,” Homan said on the call, while emphasizing that immigrants who pose a threat to national security or have criminal records are still a priority for the agency.

He said ICE will continue to target people who have been issued a final order of removal by an immigration judge even if they have not committed another crime.

“When a federal judge makes a decision and issues an order that order needs to mean something,” Homan said. “If we don’t take action on those orders, then we are just spinning our wheels.”

While President Barack Obama was also criticized for deporting a large number of immigrants, most of them were recent border crossers apprehended entering the country illegally.

Deportations under Trump have actually fallen by 12 percent compared to the same period under Obama, Homan said, as more people arrested in the interior typically have more complicated cases that can get slowed down in the backlogged immigration court system.

The number of people caught crossing the border with Mexico is down significantly since the begin of the year, according to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Immigration advocates and some cities with large immigrant populations have raised concerns about the stepped up enforcement in the interior of the country.

On Wednesday, state attorneys general from New York, California, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington state and Washington D.C., issued a report laying out why they have chosen to limit local law enforcement cooperation with federal immigration agents.

A section of one of the president’s executive orders aimed to cut off federal funding to so-called “sanctuary cities,” was been blocked by a federal judge in California.

(Reporting by Mica Rosenberg and Julia Edwards Ainsely; Editing by Alistair Bell)

In travel ban case, U.S. judges focus on discrimination, Trump’s powers

People protest U.S. President Donald Trump's travel ban outside of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Seattle, Washington, U.S. May 15, 2017. REUTERS/David Ryder

By Tom James

SEATTLE (Reuters) – U.S. appeals court judges on Monday questioned the lawyer defending President Donald Trump’s temporary travel ban about whether it discriminates against Muslims and pressed challengers to explain why the court should not defer to Trump’s presidential powers to set the policy.

The three-judge 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel was the second court in a week to review Trump’s directive banning people entering the United States from six Muslim-majority countries.

Opponents – including the state of Hawaii and civil rights groups – say that both Trump’s first ban and later revised ban discriminate against Muslims. The government argues that the text of the order does not mention any specific religion and is needed to protect the country against attacks.

In addressing the Justice Department at the hearing in Seattle, 9th Circuit Judge Richard Paez pointed out that many of Trump’s statements about Muslims came “during the midst of a highly contentious (election) campaign.” He asked if that should be taken into account when deciding how much weight they should be given in reviewing the travel ban’s constitutionality.

Neal Katyal, an attorney for Hawaii which is opposing the ban, said the evidence goes beyond Trump’s campaign statements.

“The government has not engaged in mass, dragnet exclusions in the past 50 years,” Katyal said. “This is something new and unusual in which you’re saying this whole class of people, some of whom are dangerous, we can ban them all.”

The Justice Department argues Trump issued his order solely to protect national security.

Outside the Seattle courtroom a group of protesters gathered carrying signs with slogans including, “The ban is still racist” and “No ban, no wall.”

Paez asked if an executive order detaining Japanese-Americans during the World War Two would pass muster under the government’s current logic.

Acting U.S. Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall, arguing on behalf of the Trump administration, said that the order from the 1940s, which is now viewed as a low point in U.S. civil rights history, would not be constitutional.

If Trump’s executive order was the same as the one involving Japanese-Americans, Wall said: “I wouldn’t be standing here, and the U.S. would not be defending it.”

Judge Michael Daly Hawkins asked challengers to Trump’s ban about the wide latitude held by U.S. presidents to decide who can enter the country.

“Why shouldn’t we be deferential to what the president says?” Hawkins said.

“That is the million dollar question,” said Katyal. A reasonable person would see Trump’s statements as evidence of discriminatory intent, Katyal said.

In Washington, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said at a news briefing that the executive order is “fully lawful and will be upheld. We believe that.”

The panel, made up entirely of judges appointed by Democratic former President Bill Clinton, reviewed a Hawaii judge’s ruling that blocked parts of the Republican president’s revised travel order.

LIKELY TO GO TO SUPREME COURT

The March order was Trump’s second effort to craft travel restrictions. The first, issued on Jan. 27, led to chaos and protests at airports before it was blocked by courts. The second order was intended to overcome the legal problems posed by the original ban, but it was also suspended by judges before it could take effect on March 16.

U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson in Hawaii blocked 90-day entry restrictions on people from Libya, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, as well as part of the order that suspended entry of refugee applicants for 120 days.

As part of that ruling, Watson cited Trump’s campaign statements on Muslims as evidence that his executive order was discriminatory. The 9th Circuit previously blocked Trump’s first executive order.

Last week the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia reviewed a Maryland judge’s ruling that blocked the 90-day entry restrictions. That court is largely made up of Democrats, and the judges’ questioning appeared to break along partisan lines. A ruling has not yet been released.

Trump’s attempt to limit travel was one of his first major acts in office. The fate of the ban is one indication of whether the Republican can carry out his promises to be tough on immigration and national security.

The U.S. Supreme Court is likely to be the ultimate decider, but the high court is not expected to take up the issue for several months.

(Additional reporting by Roberta Rampton in Washington)

New York mayor criticized for proposed limits on legal aid to immigrants

People rally on the steps of City Hall in Manhattan, New York, U.S., May 11, 2017. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

By Jonathan Allen

NEW YORK (Reuters) – New York City public defenders on Thursday criticized a proposal by Mayor Bill de Blasio to deny free legal counsel to immigrants in deportation hearings if they had been convicted of serious crimes in the past, saying the plan would deny them due process.

In his proposed annual budget, De Blasio allocated $16.4 million to legal services for immigrant New Yorkers, citing concern about U.S. President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigrants living in the country illegally.

Lawyers, local lawmakers and civil rights activists welcomed the funding proposal, which sharply increases legal aid for immigrants. But they gathered on the steps of City Hall to criticize a provision they said would unfairly deprive some people of the right to due process under the law.

De Blasio’s proposal would deny city-funded lawyers to immigrants previously convicted of one of 170 crimes that the city considers serious or violent.

Jennifer Friedman, who runs the immigration practice at Bronx Defenders, said the mayor’s plan would create a “two-tier system that treats people different based on their criminal history.”

The funding be in addition to the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project (NYIFUP), which has been funded by the City Council since 2013 and provides free lawyers to immigrants facing deportation hearings at the federal immigration court.

In the United States, the right to a lawyer does not extend to federal immigration hearings which are civil, not criminal, proceedings.

The plan contradicted de Blasio’s description of New York as a “sanctuary city” for immigrants, the public defenders said.

Seth Stein, a City Hall spokesman, wrote in an email that “the public should not be expected to foot the bill” for immigrants convicted of dangerous crimes. “The vast majority of immigrants have not been convicted of violent crimes,” he wrote.

More than 2,000 immigrants have received free lawyers under the council-funded program, which provides free lawyers regardless of an immigrant’s criminal record, in the four years since it began, Legal Aid said.

In New York City, immigrants without lawyers managed to overturn a removal order in court only 3 percent of the time, while those with lawyers were able to remain in the country 30 percent of the time, Legal Aid said.

(Editing by Frank McGurty and Cynthia Osterman)

Texas governor signs into law bill to punish ‘sanctuary cities’

FILE PHOTO: Texas Governor Greg Abbott speaks at a campaign rally for U.S. Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz in Dallas, Texas February 29, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Stone/File Photo

By Jon Herskovitz

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) – Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott signed into law on Sunday a measure to punish “sanctuary cities,” despite a plea from police chiefs of the state’s biggest cities to halt the bill they said would hinder their ability to fight crime.

The Texas measure comes as Republican U.S. President Donald Trump has made combating illegal immigration a priority. Texas, which has an estimated 1.5 million illegal immigrants and the longest border with Mexico of any U.S. state, has been at the forefront of the immigration debate.

“As governor, my top priority is public safety, and this bill furthers that objective by keeping dangerous criminals off our streets,” Abbott said in a statement. The law will take effect on Sept. 1.

The Republican-dominated legislature passed the bill on party-line votes and sent the measure to Abbott earlier this month. It would punish local authorities who do not abide by requests to cooperate with federal immigration agents.

Police officials found to be in violation of the law could face removal from office, fines and up to a year in prison if convicted.

The measure also allows police to ask people about their immigration status during a lawful detention, even for minor infractions like jaywalking.

Any anti-sanctuary city measure may face a tough road after a federal judge in April blocked Trump’s executive order seeking to withhold funds from local authorities that do not use their resources to advance federal immigration laws.

Democrats have warned the measure could lead to unconstitutional racial profiling and civil rights groups have promised to fight the Texas measure in court.

“This legislation is bad for Texas and will make our communities more dangerous for all,” the police chiefs of cities including Houston and Dallas wrote in an opinion piece in the Dallas Morning News in late April.

They said immigration was a federal obligation and the law would stretch already meager resources by turning local police into immigration agents.

The police chiefs said the measure would widen a gap between police and immigrant communities, creating a class of silent victims and eliminating the potential for assistance from immigrants in solving or preventing crimes.

One of the sponsors of the bill, Republican state Representative Charlie Geren, said in House debate the bill would have no effect on immigrants in the country illegally if they had not committed a crime.

He also added there were no sanctuary cities in Texas at present and the measure would prevent any from emerging.

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Peter Cooney)

U.S. coaxes Mexico into Trump plan to overhaul Central America

A member of the military police keeps watch during a routine foot patrol at El Pedregal neighbourhood Tegucigalpa, Honduras, May 3, 2017. REUTERS/Jorge Cabrera

By Gabriel Stargardter

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – The United States is plotting an ambitious attempt to shore up Central America, with the administration of President Donald Trump pressing Mexico to do more to stem the flow of migrants fleeing violence and poverty in the region, U.S. and Mexican officials say.

The U.S. vision is being shaped by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary John Kelly, who is due to give a speech about his goals for Central America in Washington on Thursday.

Kelly, who knows Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador well from his time as chief of the U.S. Southern Command, helped the administration of former President Barack Obama design his Alliance for Prosperity. That $750-million initiative sought to curtail Central American migration through development projects as well as law-and-order funding to crack down on the region’s dominant gangs.

Kelly aims to re-tool the Obama-era alliance without a large increase in American funding by pressing Mexico to shoulder more responsibility for governance and security in Central America, and by drumming up fresh private investment for the region, U.S. and Mexican diplomats say.

“What we’re going to see is … greater engagement directly between the Central Americans and Mexican government … (and) a more intense effort to integrate the economic side of this effort with the security side,” William Brownfield, the U.S. assistant secretary for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, told Reuters.

“We’re going to see a strategy that has already been developed, but it is going to be pushed harder and more aggressively in the coming year, and the year after.”

The reshaped alliance stands in contrast to some of the isolationist views jostling for power in the White House. Still it’s consistent with Trump’s foreign policy efforts to pressure China to do more to tackle the North Korea nuclear threat and to get European allies to pick up more of the tab for NATO.

The plan also puts Mexico in a delicate spot. President Enrique Pena Nieto has repeatedly expressed his desire to preserve the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which has become a pillar of Mexico’s economy.

But he must avoid the appearance of capitulating to Trump, who has enraged the Mexican public with his threats to withdraw from NAFTA and force Mexico to pay for his proposed border wall.

“We want to be on good terms with them, because we’re dealing with a much more important issue,” said a senior Mexican diplomat who was not authorized to speak publicly. “In return, we want a beneficial NAFTA renegotiation.”

Neither Kelly nor the DHS responded to requests for comment.

“The prosperity and security of Central America … represent a priority of Mexico’s foreign policy,” the country’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

“The Alliance for Prosperity … is a valuable tool that can be strengthened with the participation of other governments.”

A MAN WITH A PLAN

The new-look Alliance will be firmed up in Miami next month, when U.S., Mexican and Central American officials will meet to negotiate various issues, including Mexico’s role, according to a draft U.S. schedule obtained by Reuters.

Mexico’s Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray has said publicly Mexico is willing to work with the United States in stabilizing Central America, without giving much detail.

In private, though, local officials say cash-strapped Mexico lacks the money to invest significantly in the region – a fact that hasn’t eluded the United States.

“We do not have significant expectations of major … financial contributions by the government of Mexico at this time,” Brownfield said.

However, he said it was reasonable to expect Mexico to help train Central American officials, and deepen coordination along its southern border. Mexican government agencies could also work more closely with their southern counterparts, he added, citing the example of Colombia, which is training Central America’s police forces at the United States’ behest.

Brownfield said the re-designed plan would be executed by the State Department and development agency U.S. AID, working closely with the DHS. The Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) is working with U.S. AID to design mechanisms for luring fresh investment, he added.

IADB President Luis Alberto Moreno told Reuters the Miami meeting, coordinated with DHS officials, aimed to deliver “an investment shock” to create jobs and prevent migration.

However, the Mexican diplomat who requested anonymity expressed concern the new plan could presage a deeper militarization of Central America. The region’s armies have launched violent attacks on the powerful “Mara Salvatrucha” and “Calle 18” gangs, sparking accusations of rights abuses.

Mexico, which is also grappling with widespread violence, is open to training Central American security forces, the diplomat said, but won’t send troops to fight the gangs given its long-standing policy not to intervene in foreign conflicts.

The “Alliance for Prosperity” was cooked up by the Obama administration after a 2014 surge in child migrants from Central America. It aimed to stabilize Central America with funding for security and development. But critics say the focus skewed heavily toward funding for tackling drug smuggling and gangs.

Brownfield pointed to falling homicides in Honduras, where the murder rate has dropped to 59 killings per 100,000 people last year from 90.4 in 2012, as evidence it is starting to yield results. Still, Central America remains one of the most violent regions on earth.

Mexican diplomats say U.S. and Central American officials for years quietly pressed Mexico to join the alliance – pressure they ignored until Trump was elected, threatening to scrap NAFTA.

“Now we’re facing a different scenario because we have an American government pressuring us on lots of issues,” said the Mexican diplomat. “We want to be on good terms with the United States.”

(Additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle in Washington; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Marla Dickerson)

Trump slams federal court ruling on funding for ‘sanctuary cities’

People participate in a protest against President Donald Trump's travel ban, in New York City, U.S. January 29, 2017. REUTERS/Stephanie Keith

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump on Wednesday attacked a federal judge’s ruling that blocked his executive order seeking to withhold funds from “sanctuary cities” for illegal immigrants, vowing to appeal it to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Tuesday’s ruling by U.S. District Judge William Orrick in San Francisco was the latest blow to Trump’s efforts to toughen immigration enforcement. Federal courts have also blocked his two travel bans on citizens of mostly Muslim nations.

“First the Ninth Circuit rules against the ban & now it hits again on sanctuary cities-both ridiculous rulings. See you in the Supreme Court!” Trump said in a tweet, referring to the San Francisco-based federal appeals court and its judicial district.

The Trump administration has targeted sanctuary cities, which generally offer safe harbor to illegal immigrants and often do not use municipal funds or resources to advance the enforcement of federal immigration laws.

Critics say authorities endanger public safety when they decline to hand over for deportation illegal immigrants arrested for crimes, while supporters argue that enlisting police cooperation to round up immigrants for removal undermines trust in local police, particularly among Latinos.

Dozens of local governments and cities, including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, have joined the “sanctuary” movement.

In his ruling, Orrick said Trump’s Jan. 25 order targeted broad categories of federal funding for the sanctuary cities and that plaintiffs challenging it were likely to succeed in proving it unconstitutional.

An appeal is likely to be heard by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals before it goes to the Supreme Court. Republicans view the appeals court as biased toward liberals, and Trump was quick to attack its reputation in his tweets.

It “has a terrible record of being overturned (close to 80%). They used to call this “judge shopping!” Messy system,” he wrote.

The appeals court raised Trump’s ire earlier this year when it upheld a Seattle judge’s decision to block the Republican president’s first travel ban on citizens of seven predominantly Muslim nations.

In May, the court will hear an appeal of a Hawaii judge’s order blocking Trump’s revised travel ban, which placed restrictions on citizens from six mostly Muslim countries. A Maryland judge also blocked portions of the second ban.

Trump has issued sweeping condemnations of courts and judges when they have ruled against him or his administration.

In February, he called the federal judge in Seattle who ruled against his first travel ban a “so-called judge.” During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump accused an Indiana-born judge overseeing lawsuits against the defunct Trump University of bias based on his Mexican ancestry.

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Paul Simao)

Asylum seekers crossing into Canada increase with warmer weather

A family that says they are from Colombia walks down Roxham Road toward the U.S.-Canada border leading into Hemmingford, Quebec, Canada March 26, 2017. REUTERS/Christinne Muschi

(Reuters) – Canadian authorities caught 887 asylum seekers crossing unlawfully into Canada from the United States in March, nearly triple the number in January, according to numbers released by the government Wednesday.

This brings the total number of asylum seekers caught walking across the border to 1,860 so far this year. The new statistics suggest those numbers could rise further as the weather warms.

Canada is on track to see the highest number of asylum claims in six years, given the pace of claims filed so far, as increasing numbers of people cross into Canada to make refugee claims in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump’s election and his crackdown on refugees and illegal immigrants.

Under the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement, Canada is required to turn asylum seekers away if they try to file refugee claims at land border crossings. But if people cross the border in between formal crossings, they are taken into custody and questioned by both police and border authorities, then allowed to file claims and stay in Canada while they await the outcome.

Refugee advocates have argued that were it not for the Safe Third Country Agreement, people would file claims at border crossings instead.

The people caught crossing unlawfully comprise a fifth of everyone who has filed asylum claims in Canada so far this year but they loom large in Canadian politics, with the federal government taking fire for its wait-and-see approach. Nearly half of the people surveyed in a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released in March wanted to deport people illegally crossing into Canada from its southern neighbor.

“The majority of irregular migrants are holders of visas for the United States,” according to a statement released Wednesday from the office of Canada’s Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale.

“Canadian authorities are managing the increase in asylum seekers in a sound and measured way. … To be clear – trying to slip across the border in an irregular manner is not a ‘free’ ticket to Canada.”

Almost three-quarters of the asylum seekers caught crossing so far this year were taken into custody in Quebec, the government data showed. Roxham Road, which straddles Champlain, New York and Hemmingford, Quebec, has become such a common spot that photographers cluster there and would-be refugees refer to it by name.

Most of the others were taken into custody in Manitoba and British Columbia – 331 and 201, respectively.

Police said Wednesday they have charged 43-year-old Michelle Omoruyi with human smuggling and conspiracy to commit human smuggling. Police allege they found Omoruyi driving nine west African asylum seekers across the U.S. border into the prairie province of Saskatchewan Friday night. The nine asylum seekers have filed refugee claims and are not in custody.

(Reporting by Anna Mehler Paperny; editing by Diane Craft)

Almost half of Canadians want illegal border crossers deported

A man is confronted by a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer as he prepares to cross the U.S.-Canada border leading into Hemmingford, Quebec.

By Rod Nickel and David Ljunggren

WINNIPEG, Manitoba/OTTAWA (Reuters) – Nearly half of Canadians want to deport people who are illegally crossing into Canada from the United States, and a similar number disapprove of how Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is handling the influx, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Monday.

A significant minority, four out of 10 respondents, said the border crossers could make Canada “less safe,” underlining the potential political risk for Trudeau’s Liberal government.

The increasing flow of hundreds of asylum-seekers of African and Middle Eastern origin from the United States in recent months has become a contentious issue in Canada.

There has been broad bipartisan support for high levels of legal immigration for decades in Canada. But Trudeau has come under pressure over the flow of the illegal migrants. He is questioned about it every time he appears in parliament, from opponents on the left, who want more asylum-seekers to be allowed in, and critics on the right, who say the migrants pose a potential security risk.

Canadians appeared to be just as concerned about illegal immigration as their American neighbors, according to the poll, which was conducted between March 8-9. Some 48 percent of Canadians said they supported “increasing the deportation of people living in Canada illegally.”

When asked specifically about the recent border crossings from the United States, the same number – 48 percent – said Canada should “send these migrants back to the U.S.” Another 36 percent said Canada should “accept these migrants” and let them seek refugee status.

In the United States, where President Donald Trump was elected partly on his promise to boost deportations, 50 percent of adults supported “increasing the deportation of illegal immigrants,” according to a separate Reuters/Ipsos poll that was conducted during the same week in the United States.

Illegal migrants interviewed by Reuters in Canada said they had been living legally in the United States and had applied for asylum there. But they had fled to Canada for fear of being caught up in Trump’s immigration crackdown.

WARMING WEATHER POSES RISK

In the poll, support for deporting the border crossers was strongest among men, adults who do not have a college degree, people who are older and those with higher levels of income.

“There are so many people in the world who want to come in and go through the right channels,” said Greg Janzen, elected leader of a Manitoba border municipality that has seen hundreds of border crossers. “That’s what’s pissing most people off. These guys are jumping the border,” he said.

Forty-six percent of Canadians feel the influx would have no effect on safety, while 41 percent said it would make Canada less safe, according to the poll.

“Refugees are much more welcomed when we have gone and selected them ourselves as a country, as opposed to refugees who have chosen us,” said Janet Dench, executive director of Canadian Council for Refugees.

Of those polled, 46 percent disagreed with how Trudeau was handling the situation, 37 percent agreed, while 17 percent did not know. In January, a separate Ipsos poll found that 59 percent of Canadians approved of Trudeau, while 41 percent disapproved.

Trudeau faces no immediate threat, since the next elections are not until 2019. Trudeau’s office declined to comment on the poll, as did the opposition Conservative Party.

Brian Lee Crowley, head of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute public policy think-tank, said the number of illegal migrants could spike as the weather warms, and “if people become convinced there’s a large uncontrolled flow of illegal immigrants, I think that will be a very serious political issue for the government.”

Canadian authorities dismiss the idea they are being lax.

Dan Brien, a spokesman for Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale, said “trying to slip across the border in an irregular manner is not a ‘free’ ticket to Canada,” noting that all asylum-seekers were detained.

“If they are found to be inadmissible without a valid claim, deportation procedures are begun,” he said by email when asked about the poll.

According to a separate Ipsos poll in Canada, 23 percent of Canadians listed immigration control as among the top national issues in March, up from 17 percent in December. It ranks behind healthcare, taxes, unemployment and poverty as top concerns.

The Canadian government set an immigration target of 300,000 for 2017, or just under 1 percent of the population, the same level as 2016. It reduced the 2017 target for resettled refugees to 25,000 from 44,800 in 2016, a year when it welcomed 25,000 refugees from Syria.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online in English and French throughout Canada. It included responses from 1,001 people who were at least 18 years old. Individual responses were weighted according to the latest population estimates in Canada, so that the results reflect the entire population.

The poll has a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of 4 percentage points.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren, Rod Nickel and Chris Kahn, additional reporting by Anna Mehler Paperny, editing by Amran Abocar and Ross Colvin)

Costa Rica gets 100 illegal immigrants a day hoping to get to U.S.

Costa Rican President Luis Guillermo Solis Rivera addresses the United Nations General Assembly in the Manhattan borough of New York, U.S. September 20, 2016.

By Hugh Bronstein

NEW YORK (Reuters) – More than 100 illegal immigrants are entering the small Central American country of Costa Rica every day, looking for “coyotes” to take them across the Nicaraguan border and on toward the United States, President Luis Solis said on Friday.

Eighty-five percent of the new arrivals are from Haiti by way of Brazil, where many settled after Haiti’s 2010 earthquake but whose construction jobs have disappeared now that the Rio Olympics are over and the country wallows in recession, Solis said on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.

“The phenomenon has shifted quite significantly,” Solis said.

His government has set up centers that offer the migrants basic shelter and food, before they take the day-long bus trip through Costa Rica to the Nicaraguan frontier. Nicaragua does not allow the migrants to enter, so they are forced into the world of “coyotes,” or illegal guides, often linked to criminal gangs.

Solis said the 15 percent of arrivals who are not Haitians are Cubans as well as Africans and Asians who make their way across the Atlantic to Brazil and then trudge through Colombia and Panama to get to Costa Rica.

“Migration is a global phenomenon and it is not new. But something unexpected is happening, a refurbished flow of migrants is on the move in Latin America,” Solis said.

So far, Solis said, Costa Rica can handle the inflow and outflow of immigrants passing through the country.

The United States, however, responding to a surge in Haitian immigrants, will end special protections for them dating back to the devastating 2010 earthquake, the Department of Homeland Security said on Thursday.

“What if they start deciding to stay on Costa Rica after hearing that the United States has changed its tolerance policy and is going to start deporting them?” Solis said. “That’s a concern.”

More than 5,000 Haitians have entered the United States without visas this fiscal year through Oct. 1, according to Department of Homeland Security officials, up from 339 in fiscal year 2015.

Panama’s president, Juan Carlos Varela, said this week that  Haiti’s economy and democracy must be fortified in order to stanch the rapid outflow of people from the impoverished island nation.

In February, Michel Martelly stepped down as president of Haiti without a successor. New elections are scheduled for Oct. 9.

(Reporting by Hugh Bronstein; Editing by Leslie Adler)

Court lifts Court Order against Sheriff Arpaio’s Raids in Arizona

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio listens to U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speak at a campaign rally in Marshalltown

(Reuters) – A federal appeals court on Monday lifted a court order blocking Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s use of workplace raids to enforce Arizona laws that make it a crime for illegal immigrants to use stolen identities to obtain work.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said a lower court judge erred in imposing a preliminary injunction in January 2015 against Arpaio’s and Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery’s enforcement of Arizona’s identity theft laws.

Since 2008, Arpaio’s workplace raids had led to the arrests of more than 700 undocumented workers for identity theft.

The raids had become a signature initiative for Arpaio, who bills himself as “America’s toughest sheriff.”

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Alan Crosby)