Tag Archives: Immigration

Man arrested for starting Colorado wildfire burning over 38,000 acres

Flames rise past a ridge during efforts to contain the Spring Creek Fire in Costilla County, Colorado, U.S. June 27, 2018. Costilla County Sheriff's Office/Handout via REUTERS

TAOS, New Mexico (Reuters) – A man was arrested on Saturday on charges of starting a forest fire in Colorado that has destroyed structures and forced hundreds to evacuate their homes in one of dozens of wildfires raging across the drought-hit U.S. southwest.

Jesper Joergensen, 52, was taken into custody for suspected arson that started the Springs Fire, the most active of around 10 blazes in Colorado, the state hardest hit by fires, according to Costilla County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page.

Joergensen is not a U.S. citizen and will be handed over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement once he has faced arson charges, said a Costilla County detention officer. The officer could not immediately say what nationality Joergensen held.

The fire has scorched over 38,000 acres (15,378 hectares) between the towns of Fort Garland and La Veta in southern Colorado, forcing more mandatory evacuations of homes and ranches on Saturday in a mountainous area of public and private land. The fire continued to grow, fueled by temperatures in the mid 80s Fahrenheit (27 Celsius) and had zero percent containment as of Saturday afternoon.

Air tankers and helicopters dropped fire retardant and water on the blaze. Authorities asked evacuated residents not to fly drones to check on their properties as the devices posed a danger to aircraft and would force them to be grounded.

An unknown number of structures were consumed by the fire, said Bethany Urban, a public information officer. No injuries have been reported.

Gusty winds, single-digit humidity and hot temperatures have fueled the fires and could ignite new blazes in the U.S. West, the National Weather Service said in several warnings.

The largest wildfire in Colorado, the 416 Fire, has charred almost 47,000 acres about 13 miles (21 km) north of Durango in the southwest corner of the state, and is 37 percent contained, said public information officer Brandalyn Vonk.

About 10 smaller wildfires were burning in New Mexico and three in Arizona, with much of the two states suffering extreme or exceptional drought conditions.

All but the northeastern corner of Colorado is experiencing moderate to exceptional drought conditions, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

(Reporting by Andrew Hay in Taos, New Mexico; Editing by Grant McCool)

Protestors, lawmaker arrested in Senate building sit-in over immigration

Immigration activists wrapped in silver blankets, symbolising immigrant children that were seen in similar blankets at a U.S.-Mexico border detention facility in Texas, protest inside the Hart Senate Office Building after marching to Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., June 28, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

By Makini Brice

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Some 600 protesters were arrested during a clangorous occupation of a U.S. Senate office building in Washington on Thursday, where they decried U.S. President Donald Trump’s “zero- tolerance” stance on illegal immigration.

The protesters, mostly women dressed in white, sat on the Hart Senate Office Building’s marbled floors and wrapped themselves in metallic silver blankets similar to those given to migrant children separated from their families by U.S. immigration officials.

Their chant “Say it loud, say it clear, immigrants are welcome here” echoed through the building, drawing scores of Senate staff to upper mezzanine floors from where they watched the commotion.

Capitol Police warned protestors that if they did not leave the building they would be arrested. Soon after, protesters were lined against a wall in small groups and police confiscated their blankets and signs.

U.S. Capitol Police direct U.S. Representative Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) to stand for arrest as she joined demonstrators calling for "an end to family detention" and in opposition to the immigration policies of the Trump administration, at the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S. June 28, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

U.S. Capitol Police direct U.S. Representative Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) to stand for arrest as she joined demonstrators calling for “an end to family detention” and in opposition to the immigration policies of the Trump administration, at the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S. June 28, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

It took police about 90 minutes to arrest them and end the demonstration. Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, a Democrat, sat with the protesters and was also arrested.

Capitol Police said in a statement that about 575 people were charged with unlawfully demonstrating and they would be processed at the scene and released. They said people who were charged and fined could pay 24 hours after their arrests, but it was not clear who had been fined and how much.

Democratic senators Mazie Hirono, Tammy Duckworth, Kirsten Gillibrand and Jeff Merkley, who have been critical of Trump’s immigration policies, spoke with some of the protesters. Gillibrand held a sign that read: “End Detentions Now.”

Women’s March, a movement that began in the United States when Trump was inaugurated in 2017 and spread around the world, had called on women to risk arrest at Thursday’s protest.

Organizers said in a statement that 630 women were arrested during the protest.

“We are rising up to demand an end to the criminalization of immigrants,” Linda Sarsour, one of the leaders of the Women’s March, said in the statement.

Before arriving at Capitol Hill, the protesters marched down Pennsylvania Avenue, pausing to chant “Shame! Shame! Shame!” at the Trump International Hotel.

The Women’s March demonstration is part of a wave of actions against Trump, whose administration began seeking in May to prosecute all adults who cross the border without authorization.

More than 2,000 children who arrived illegally in the United States with adult relatives were separated from them and placed in detention facilities or with foster families around the United States.

The policy led to intense criticism in the United States and abroad, and Trump signed an executive order that would let children stay with their parents as they moved through the legal system, drawing renewed criticism.

Loretta Fudoli took a bus to Washington from Conway, Arkansas, to join Thursday’s protest. She said she had been arrested at demonstrations three or four times since she became politically active after Trump’s election.

“Their parents shouldn’t even be locked up,” Fudoli said. “This is not a bad enough crime to lock them up and take their children away.”

Most of the children separated from their families before the order was signed have not yet been reunited with them.

The White House has said that the order was not a long-term solution and has called for Congress to pass immigration reform.

Larger protests are being planned for Saturday in Washington, D.C., and cities around the country under the banner of #FamiliesBelongTogether.

(Reporting by Makini Brice; Writing by Bill Tarrant and Jonathan Allen; Editing by David Gregorio, Toni Reinhold)

U.S. judge orders migrant families to be reunited

A Honduran family seeking asylum waits on the Mexican side of the Brownsville & Matamoros International Bridge after being denied entry by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers near Brownsville, Texas, U.S., June 26, 2018. Picture taken June 26, 2018. REUTERS/Loren Elliott

By Jonathan Stempel and Doina Chiacu

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. judge has blocked the Trump administration from separating immigrant parents and children at the U.S.-Mexico border, and ordered that those who were separated be reunited within 30 days.

The nationwide injunction issued late Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw in San Diego will not be the final word on a heated battle over the treatment of immigrant families who cross the border illegally. A government appeal is likely.

Sabraw’s preliminary injunction also requires the government to reunite children under the age of five with their parents within 14 days, and let children talk with their parents within 10 days.

More than 2,300 migrant children were separated from their parents as a result of the administration’s “zero tolerance” policy that began in early May and sought to prosecute all adults crossing the border without authorization, including those traveling with children.

The separations sparked widespread condemnation in the United States, including from within President Donald Trump’s own Republican Party, and abroad.

Although Trump issued an executive order on June 20 to end the family separations, the American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the San Diego case, said it contained “loopholes” and did little to fix the problem. Some 2,000 children remain separated.

Sabraw, an appointee of former Republican President George W. Bush, rebuked the administration.

“The facts set forth before the court portray reactive governance responses to address a chaotic circumstance of the government’s own making,” he wrote. “They belie measured and ordered governance, which is central to the concept of due process enshrined in our Constitution.”

The White House had no immediate comment.

LAYING BLAME

In opposing a preliminary injunction, the government had argued that Trump’s executive order “largely” addressed the concerns of the ACLU.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told a Senate hearing earlier on Tuesday that most separated children could not be reunited until the Republican-led Congress passed necessary legislation.

He also laid blame for the problem on the families, saying that “if the parents didn’t bring them across illegally, this would never happen.”

The ACLU hailed Sabraw’s decision.

“This victory will be bring relief to all the parents and children who thought they may never see each other again,” ACLU lawyer Lee Gelernt said in an email. “It is a complete victory.”

Sabraw ruled several hours after 17 generally Democratic-leaning states and Washington, D.C. sued the Trump administration in Seattle federal court over the family separations, calling them “cruel” and motivated by “animus.”

LEGISLATIVE SOLUTION

After issuing his executive order, Trump called last week on Congress to pass legislation that addressed immigration issues. But although Republicans control Congress, disagreements between moderates and conservatives in the party have impeded a speedy legislative fix to the border crisis.

An immigration bill favored by conservative Republicans failed to pass the House last week. The House planned to vote on Wednesday on a broad immigration bill that would bar the separation of children from their parents at the southern border

In a Twitter post written in capital letters throughout, Trump said House Republicans should pass the bill, even though he said Democrats would stop it from passing in the Senate, where Republicans have a slimmer majority.

“PASSAGE WILL SHOW THAT WE WANT STRONG BORDERS AND SECURITY WHILE THE DEMS WANT OPEN BORDERS = CRIME,” the president wrote on Twitter.

House Speaker Paul Ryan said on Tuesday he would not rule out the possibility of bringing a vote on a narrower bill addressing only the detention of immigrant families, if the broader bill did not pass.

The ACLU had sued on behalf of a mother and her then 6-year-old daughter, who were separated for four months after entering the country to seek asylum and flee religious persecution in Democratic Republic of Congo.

The ACLU case is Ms. L et al v U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of California, No. 18-00428.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel and Alison Frankel in New York; Yasmeen Abutaleb and Doina Chiacu in Washington, D.C.; Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles and Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Frances Kerry)

Sweden’s far-right eyes election gains as gang violence rises

FILE PHOTO: Police officers stand at the scene of an explosion after what is believed to have been a robbery attempt on an ATM, in Genarp, southern Sweden March 21, 2016. REUTERS/Johan Nilsson/TT News Agency/File Photo

By Simon Johnson and Johan Ahlander

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – A surge in gang violence has stirred anti-immigration sentiment before an election in Sweden, putting a far-right party on course for big gains in one of Europe’s most liberal countries.

Dozens of people have been killed in the past two years in attacks in the capital Stockholm and other big cities by gangs that are mostly from run-down suburbs dominated by immigrants.

In the latest bloodshed, three men were shot dead and three were wounded outside an internet cafe in the city of Malmo on June 18. A fourth man was shot dead days later and another man survived because he was wearing a bullet-proof vest.

FILE PHOTO: Police technicians examine the car which people who were injured were traveling in, after a shooting in southern Malmo, Sweden September 25, 2016. TT News Agency/Emil Langvad via Reuters/File Photo

FILE PHOTO: Police technicians examine the car which people who were injured were traveling in, after a shooting in southern Malmo, Sweden September 25, 2016. TT News Agency/Emil Langvad via Reuters/File Photo

With public calls growing for tougher policies on crime and immigration, support has risen for the Sweden Democrats, a party with neo-Nazi roots that wants to freeze immigration and to hold a referendum on Sweden’s membership of the European Union.

Their worried mainstream rivals have started moving to the right on crime and immigration to try to counter the Sweden Democrats’ threat in the Sept. 9 election. But so far, they are playing into the hands of the far-right.

“Right now they (mainstream parties) are competing over who can set out the most restrictive policies,” said Deputy Prime Minister Isabella Lovin, whose Green Party is part of a minority government led by the Social Democratic Party.

“It clearly benefits the Sweden Democrats.”

Opinion polls put the Sweden Democrats on about 20 percent support, up from the 13 percent of votes they secured in the 2014 election and the 5.7 percent which saw them enter parliament for the first time in 2010.

The Sweden Democrats’ rise on the back of anti-immigration sentiment mirrors gains for right-wing, populist and anti-establishment parties in other European countries such as Italy, France, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Slovenia and Austria.

Immigration has risen back up the political agenda since far-right parties entered coalition governments in Austria and Italy, and will be discussed at a summit in Brussels this week.

Though the Sweden Democrats are unlikely to win power, the growing popularity for a party opposed to the EU is a concern for Brussels although Swedes broadly support EU membership, polls show.

FILE PHOTO: Police officers stand guard at a cordoned area after a masked man attacked people with a sword at a school in Trollhattan, western Sweden October 22, 2015. REUTERS/Bjorn Larsson Rosvall/TT News Agency/File Photo

FILE PHOTO: Police officers stand guard at a cordoned area after a masked man attacked people with a sword at a school in Trollhattan, western Sweden October 22, 2015. REUTERS/Bjorn Larsson Rosvall/TT News Agency/File Photo

BACKLASH

Five years ago, Sweden saw itself as a “humanitarian superpower” that generously welcomed migrants, many of them fleeing conflict in the Middle East and Africa.

But as in Germany, where Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government has been cracking under pressure from her coalition partners to tighten immigration curbs, Sweden’s government now faces a backlash over the scale of immigration.

About 400,000 people have sought asylum in the wealthy Scandinavian country of 10 million since 2012, and it took in 163,000 asylum seekers in 2015 alone. Some voters fear schools, hospitals and welfare services cannot cope, and Sweden’s reputation for tolerance and social equality is threatened.

The Sweden Democrats still trail the Social Democratic Party but has overtaken the main opposition Moderates in many polls. All mainstream parties have ruled out working with them.

But they could emerge from the election as kingmakers, and a strong election showing could force the next government to take their views into consideration when shaping policy.

Their policies include a total freeze on asylum seekers and accepting refugees only from Sweden’s neighbors in the future. They also want tougher penalties for crime and more powers for police, and say tax cuts and higher spending on welfare could be funded by cutting the immigration budget.

Jimmie Akesson, the leader of the Sweden Democratic party, has described the situation as “pretty fantastic”.

“We are dominating the debate even though no one will talk to us,” he told party members.

RUTHLESS CRIMINAL UNDERCLASS

There were 129 shootings in Stockholm in 2017. Nineteen people were killed in the attacks, almost twice as many as in 2016, according to official figures.

In Malmo, where about 45 percent of the 330,000 inhabitants have an immigrant background, police say three or four gangs are operating. Swedish media say nine people have been shot dead in the city this year after 21 in the previous two year-period.

A 2017 police report into Sweden’s most deprived areas pointed to a heavily armed and ruthless criminal underclass.

All the areas identified by police are socially deprived suburbs with large immigrant populations, places where poverty and long-term youth unemployment are big problems.

Among these is the Stockholm suburb of Rinkeby, where two men walked into a pizzeria packed with families in January and shot a man dead in what police said was a gang killing.

When it was built in the 1970s, Rinkeby was a symbol of modernity, part of what became known as Sweden’s Million Homes project to replace run-down inner-city slums with clean, well-planned suburbs with their own schools, shops and healthcare facilities.

With ninety-one percent of its 16,000 inhabitants born abroad or to parents born outside Sweden, only half of them working, the area is now synonymous with failed integration, unemployment and social exclusion.

Police say people in Rinkeby live in fear of a group known as the Death Patrol gang.

“A few individuals have kept an entire neighborhood terrified,” said Mohamed Nuur, 26, a local Social Democrat politician. Witnesses of the pizzeria shooting were afraid to testify against the suspects, he said.

Rinkeby was one of several suburbs in northern Stockholm hit by riots in 2013 which fueled debate about how Sweden is coping with youth unemployment and the influx of immigrants, issues raised by urban violence in France in 2005 and Britain in 2011.

“RIGHT-WING PATH”

Many Swedes were horrified in early 2017 when U.S. President Donald Trump linked immigration to rising crime in Sweden, but an increasing number now agree with him.

The Sweden Democrats have succeeded in linking the two in the minds of many voters, even though official statistics show no correlation between overall levels of crime and immigration.

Sweden has one of the highest levels of lethal gun violence in Europe, World Health Organisation data showed. But while the number of foreign-born citizens has risen for decades, murder rates are roughly flat.

The government denies it has lost control but Prime Minister Stefan Lofven has not ruled out sending the military into problem areas.

Moving to the right, he has tried to deal with the threat posed by the Sweden Democrats by saying immigration – down to 26,000 in 2017 – should halve from last year’s level.

The government has also proposed tougher punishments for gun crimes and sexual assaults, wants to stop financial support for undocumented foreigners, put more of those whose identity is unclear in holding centers and accelerate repatriation of failed asylum seekers.

The Moderates have also toughened their stance on crime and immigration, promising a crackdown on welfare for asylum seekers and a ban on begging. Both main parties say Sweden will not return to liberal asylum rules suspended in 2015.

“Sweden is going down a more right-wing path,” said Nick Aylott, a political scientist at Sodertorn University said. “It is almost impossible to avoid according some sort of influence to a party with around 20 percent of the vote.”

(Editing by Timothy Heritage)

Two U.S. military bases in Texas to house immigrants: Mattis

Honduran families seeking asylum wait on the Mexican side of the Brownsville-Matamoros International Bridge after being denied entry by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers near Brownsville, Texas, U.S., June 24, 2018. REUTERS/Loren Elliott

By Phil Stewart

EIELSON AIR FORCE BASE, Alaska (Reuters) – The U.S. military is preparing to house immigrants at two bases in Texas, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Monday, the latest sign of the military being drawn into a supporting role for President Donald Trump’s immigration policies.

Fort Bliss, an Army base in El Paso, Texas, and Goodfellow Air Base in San Angelo, Texas, would be used, Mattis said, but he added that he could not confirm any specifics.

“We’ll provide whatever support the Department of Homeland Security needs in order to house the people they have under their custody,” Mattis told reporters in Alaska before leaving on an Asia trip.

In the face of outrage at home and overseas over his crackdown on illegal immigration, Trump was forced last week to abandon his policy of separating children from parents who are apprehended for illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.

The U.S. military, and Mattis in particular, have stressed that it is simply providing logistical support to the Department of Homeland Security, which deals with immigration issues.

“We’re not going to get into the political aspect. Providing housing, shelter for those who need it is a legitimate governmental function,” Mattis said.

One U.S. official, speaking earlier on the condition of anonymity, said it was expected that one of the bases would house immigrant families and another immigrant children.

On Sunday, Mattis said the U.S. military was preparing to build temporary camps at two military bases to house immigrants but did not name the facilities.

Last week, the U.S. military said it had been asked by the government to get ready to house up to 20,000 immigrant children.

Trump has previously turned to the military to help with his border crackdown. Earlier this year, U.S. National Guard forces were dispatched to border states to help tighten security.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska; additional reporting by Idrees Ali and Doina Chiacu in Washington; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Grant McCool)

Migrants ‘knock at front door’ for asylum after Trump crackdown

A Mexican migrant child arranges freshly-washed clothing at the Senda de Vida migrant shelter in Reynosa, in Tamaulipas state, Mexico June 22, 2018. Picture taken June 22, 2018. REUTERS/Daniel Becerril

By Anthony Esposito and Lizbeth Diaz

TIJUANA/REYNOSA, Mexico (Reuters) – More Mexicans and Central Americans are lining up to make asylum requests at the U.S.-Mexico border as word spreads of a U.S. crackdown on families crossing illegally and the threat of brutal gangs lying in wait if they go it alone.

Officials at shelters in border cities as well as migrants from Mexico and Central America told Reuters there was a rising number of people waiting, often for weeks, to make asylum pleas to immigration authorities at official border crossings.

Many of the dozens of migrants interviewed by Reuters said they decided to present an official asylum request after hearing about parents being separated from children when crossing the U.S. border illegally, and about friends making successful requests.

Following an outcry at home and abroad over his administration’s “zero tolerance” policy, U.S. President Donald Trump issued an executive order last week to end the family separations. But over 2,000 children are yet to be reunited with their parents.

The migrants, many with children in tow, told harrowing tales of kidnapping, extortion and murder by gangs in Mexico and Central America. That threat was enough to inspire the perilous journey in hope of receiving asylum in the United States.

“They don’t go through the mountains or deserts anymore, they go to the front door,” said Victor Clark Alfaro, a migration expert at San Diego State University.

But their chances of asylum may be diminishing.

On June 11, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions overturned a grant of asylum to a Salvadoran domestic abuse victim, potentially excluding immigrants seeking refuge from sexual, gang and other forms of violence in their homelands.

Those threats were the basis of a “credible fear” argument that could prevent them from being returned.

That risk has yet to deter migrants.

WAITING GAME

Shelters run by charities in Reynosa, Tijuana and Nogales – Mexican cities separated by hundreds of miles along the border – all reported an uptick in migrant asylum seekers.

Marla Conrad, a coordinator at the Kino Border Initiative in Nogales, said that so far this month, she had seen about an extra 100 people lining up for asylum compared with May.

At the border in Tijuana, 26-year-old Jose Cortes from El Salvador, traveling with his 5-year-old daughter, said the waiting list to request asylum was now 1,150 people long. When he arrived two weeks ago, it had 1,000 names on it.

Migrants manage the waiting list, a task currently with Cortes. When his turn comes to cross into the United States for an asylum interview, he will pass the list to another migrant.

It is growing even as 30 to 60 people are called up daily to plead their cases with U.S. border agents.

Mexican Jacqueline Moreno, 43, said that as recently as December, her daughter managed to cross and successfully request asylum on the same day. Now, fleeing violence in her home state of Michoacan with her son, 13, Moreno said she had been waiting three weeks.

MANY MORE PEOPLE

Some migrants followed tips from their hometowns about how to seek asylum. Others paid thousands of dollars to people smugglers, or “coyotes,” who assured them a case could be made.

Many stay near the border in spartan shelters, with rows of brightly colored tents, or in dingy hotels often charging prices they struggle to pay.

Patricia Flores and her 7-year-old son are among thousands of Central Americans waiting at the border.

After witnessing a gangland killing in their neighborhood, Flores decided to pay $4,000 to a human smuggler who told her she could just get to the border and ask for asylum.

Flores has been desperately trying to get a meeting at the border but said she had been turned away by Mexican officials.

Her son described how he saw his neighbor shot in the head back in El Salvador.

“My mom said it’s our secret but if I tell anyone, I am going to go to heaven. I don’t want to,” he said, adding he was not afraid. Pointing to his green T-shirt with a cartoon on it, he said that was his “bulletproof jacket.”

Adelia Contini, from Brazil, has run a church-funded shelter for women and children in Tijuana for nine years. She too has noticed a increase in asylum seekers.

“Since 2013, we started seeing more people asking for asylum, but not as much as now,” she said. “Since January, there are many more people, more than last year.”

‘WAITING TO KILL US’

Encouraged by relatives and friends in the United States, Honduran Lorena Mejia has been waiting for two weeks in a shelter in Reynosa near the banks of the Rio Grande with her husband and four children to apply for asylum.

Returning home did not bear thinking about, Mejia said, explaining that she and her family had been threatened because they witnessed a massacre in Honduras a few years ago.

“We can’t go back there. They’re waiting to kill us,” the 31-year-old said, adding that two other witnesses had already been murdered. “We have to get in.”

Sharon Melissa Analco, 23, arrived in Tijuana on Friday with her 5-year-old daughter, fleeing kidnappers terrorizing her family in Acapulco in the violent Mexican state of Guerrero.

Analco said she had no money to pay for her stay, having expected to be able to get right into the United States. But a U.S. official turned her away at the crossing, telling her she would have to put her name on a list and wait her turn.

“I can’t wait out there,” she recalled telling the official, weeping on the plaza next to the border. “I’m in danger.”

(Reporting by Anthony Esposito and Lizbeth Diaz; Writing by Michael O’Boyle and Anthony Esposito; Editing by Dave Graham, Daniel Flynn and Peter Cooney)

Supreme Court poised to rule on Trump travel ban, California law on anti abortion clinic regulations

FILE PHOTO: The U.S. Supreme Court is seen after the court revived Ohio's contentious policy of purging infrequent voters from its registration rolls, overturning a lower court ruling that Ohio's policy violated the National Voter Registration Act, in Washington, U.S., June 11, 2018. REUTERS/Erin Schaff/File Photo

By Lawrence Hurley and Andrew Chung

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court, winding down its nine-month term, will issue rulings this week in its few remaining cases including a major one on the legality of President Donald Trump’s ban on people from five Muslim-majority nations entering the country.

The nine justices are due to decide other politically sensitive cases on whether non-union workers have to pay fees to unions representing certain public-sector workers such as police and teachers, and the legality of California regulations on clinics that steer women with unplanned pregnancies away from abortion.

The justices began their term in October and, as is their usual practice, aim to make all their rulings by the end of June, with more due on Monday. Six cases remain to be decided.

The travel ban case was argued on April 25, with the court’s conservative majority signaling support for Trump’s policy in a significant test of presidential powers.

Trump has said the ban is needed to protect the United States from attacks by Islamic militants. Conservative justices indicated an unwillingness to second-guess Trump on his national security rationale.

Lower courts had blocked the travel ban, the third version of a policy Trump first pursued a week after taking office last year. But the high court on Dec. 4 allowed it to go fully into effect while the legal challenge continued.

The challengers, led by the state of Hawaii, have argued the policy was motivated by Trump’s enmity toward Muslims. Lower courts have decided the ban violated federal immigration law and the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition on the government favoring one religion over another.

The current ban, announced in September, prohibits entry into the United States by most people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen.

In a significant case for organized labor, the court’s conservatives indicated opposition during arguments on Feb. 26 to so-called agency fees that some states require non-members to pay to public-sector unions.

Workers who decide not to join unions representing certain state and local employees must pay the fees in two dozen states in lieu of union dues to help cover the cost of non-political activities such as collective bargaining. The fees provide millions of dollars annually to these unions.

The justices seemed skeptical during March 20 arguments toward California’s law requiring Christian-based anti-abortion centers, known as crisis pregnancy centers, to post notices about the availability of state-subsidized abortions and birth control. The justices indicated that they would strike down at least part of the regulations.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley and Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham and Grant McCool)

Bulgaria to propose immediate closure of EU borders to migrants

Bulgarian border policemen stand near the barbed wire fence constructed on the Bulgarian-Turkish border, near Lesovo, Bulgaria September 14, 2016. REUTERS/Stoyan Nenov

SOFIA (Reuters) – Bulgaria will propose the immediate closure of the European Union’s external borders to migrants and the setting up of centers for war refugees outside its territory at the EU’s weekend mini-summit on migration.

Prime Minister Boyko Borissov said once migrant inflows were stemmed, the EU should deal with the thousands of migrants already in Europe, taking care of people fleeing conflict and sending the rest home.

“I will insist on the immediate closure of the external borders of the whole European Union,” Borissov said in a surprise visit to parliament, following an opposition call for information on Bulgaria’s position on migration.

He said centers should be set up in Libya and Turkey to deal with migrants before they reached Europe.

Bulgaria, which holds the European Union presidency, hopes that by halting migrant inflows the bloc may also ease the concerns of Central European countries that are opposing calls to accept a quota of migrants who have entered the EU since 2015 in order to share the burden around the bloc.

“Their fear is that there are no guarantees that this process will not continue,” Borissov said.

He said he would hold talks again with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban over the issue.

On Thursday, leaders of the Visegrad Four countries Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic said they would skip the smaller summit on Sunday ahead of a full 28-member EU summit next week.

On Friday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel downplayed expectations of a major breakthrough being reached at Sunday’s meeting. Borissov said he did not expect that any documents would be signed.

(Reporting by Tsvetelia Tsolova; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

House Republicans short of votes to pass immigration bill: lawmaker

Migrant families from Mexico, fleeing from violence, listen to officers of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection before entering the United States to apply for asylum at Paso del Norte international border crossing bridge in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez

By Richard Cowan and Amanda Becker

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives have not yet rounded up the votes needed to pass immigration legislation they plan to take up later on Thursday, a member of the House Republican leadership said.

“Well, we’re working with our members. Obviously we have to get 218 votes and we’re working hard to get there,” Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the head of the House Republican Conference, told Fox News Channel.

“We’re not there yet but we’re working on it,” she said.

The House plans to vote on two bills designed to halt the practice of separating families entering the United States illegally and address a range of other immigration issues.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday stepped back from his administration’s practice of separating immigrant families that illegally cross the border, which had been part of his so-called zero tolerance policy on illegal immigration. He signed an executive order to stop the separations but it was unclear how children already taken from their parents would be reunited.

The policy shift faces legal challenges because of a court order that put a 20-day cap on how long minors can be detained, and the Trump administration has called for legislation to find a permanent fix.

Both House bills, backed by Trump but opposed by Democrats and immigration advocacy groups, would fund the wall Trump has proposed along the U.S. border with Mexico and reduce legal migration, in part by denying visas for some relatives of U.S. residents and citizens living abroad.

The more conservative bill would deny the chance of future citizenship to “Dreamers” – immigrants brought illegally into the United States years ago when they were children.

Even if a bill clears the House, it would face an uncertain future in the Senate, where lawmakers are considering different measures and where Republicans would need at least nine senators from the Democratic caucus to join them to ensure any bill could overcome procedural hurdles.

“What is the purpose of the House doing good immigration bills when you need 9 votes by Democrats in the Senate, and the Dems are only looking to Obstruct,” Trump said in a tweet on Thursday as he renewed his call for a change in Senate rules to allow legislation to move with a simple majority.

(Reporting by Tim Ahmann; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Bill Trott)

Trump backs down, signs order to end family separations at U.S. border

U.S. President Donald Trump signs an executive order on immigration policy in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, U.S., June 20, 2018. REUTERS/Leah Millis

By Roberta Rampton and Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump backed down on Wednesday on an immigration policy that sparked outrage at home and abroad, signing an executive order to end the separation of children from their parents when immigrant families are caught crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally.

The order requires that immigrant families be detained together when they are caught entering the country illegally, although it was not immediately clear for how long.

It also moves parents with children to the front of the line for immigration proceedings. The order does not end a “zero tolerance” policy that calls for criminal prosecution of immigrants crossing the border illegally.

“It’s about keeping families together while at the same time making sure that we have a very powerful, very strong border,” Trump said as he signed the order in a hastily arranged Oval Office gathering.

Videos of youngsters in cages and an audiotape of wailing children had sparked anger in the United States from groups ranging from clergy to influential business leaders, as well as condemnation from abroad, including Pope Francis.

Trump, a frequent viewer of cable television newscasts, had recognized the family separation issue was a growing political problem, White House sources said. First lady Melania Trump, in private conversations with the president, urged him to do something, a White House official said.

“The first lady has been making her opinion known to the president for some time now, which was that he needed to do all he could to help families stay together,” an official said.

Wednesday’s move marked a rare instance since Trump took office in January 2017 in which he has changed course on a controversial policy, rather than digging in.

Trump has made a tough stance on immigration central to his presidency. In recent days, the Republican president had insisted his hands were tied by law on the issue of family separations and had sought to blame Democrats, although it was his administration that implemented the policy of strict adherence to immigration law.

The Republican-controlled U.S. Congress is also considering legislation to address the issue. The House of Representatives planned to vote on Thursday on two bills designed to halt the practice of separating families and to address other immigration issues.

But Republicans said they were uncertain if either measure would have enough support to be approved. Trump told House Republicans on Tuesday night he would support either of the immigration bills under consideration but did not give a preference.

(Reporting by Roberta Rampton, Susan Cornwell, Amanda Becker and Mohammad Zargham; Writing by John Whitesides; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh, Bill Trott and Frances Kerry)