Tag Archives: Migrants

NYC considering housing migrants in now-shuttered jail on Rikers Island

Rikers Island Jail Complex

Deuteronomy 28:43-53 43 “Foreigners who live in your land will gain more and more power, while you gradually lose yours. 44 They will have money to lend you, but you will have none to lend them. In the end they will be your rulers. 45 “All these disasters will come on you, and they will be with you until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the Lord your God and keep all the laws that he gave you. 46 They will be the evidence of God’s judgment on you and your descendants forever. 47 The Lord blessed you in every way, but you would not serve him with glad and joyful hearts. 48 So then, you will serve the enemies that the Lord is going to send against you. You will be hungry, thirsty, and naked – in need of everything. The Lord will oppress you harshly until you are destroyed. 49 The Lord will bring against you a nation from the ends of the earth, a nation whose language you do not know. They will swoop down on you like an eagle. 50 They will be ruthless and show no mercy to anyone, young or old. 51 They will eat your livestock and your crops, and you will starve to death. They will not leave you any grain, wine, olive oil, cattle, or sheep; and you will die. 52 They will attack every town in the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and the high, fortified walls in which you trust will fall. 53 “When your enemies are besieging your towns, you will become so desperate for food that you will even eat the children that the Lord your God has given you.

Important Takeaways:

  • New York City officials are seriously considering a plan to house migrants in a Rikers Island jail that was shuttered last year
  • The move…is one of several being considered by Mayor Adams’ administration to house a wave of migrants entering the city.
  • “It is really not a good idea,” she said. “It is already a very isolating place that really should not be utilized to house anyone.”
  • In recent weeks, the administration has placed migrants in upstate hotels and confirmed a plan to house them in as many as 20 public school gyms, costing the city millions of dollars per day.

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Migrants given court dates 10 YEARS in the future

Mathew 24:12 And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.

Important Takeaways:

  • As they make their way through the system, some new migrants are being given court dates far into the future.
  • It all comes amid a backlog in court cases of a stunning 2 million.
  • The Biden administration rushed through new restrictions, effectively restoring Trump’s ‘transit ban,’ which allows for the deportation of arrivals who did not seek asylum in countries through which they traveled.
  • On Thursday, the mayor of Yuma announced that CBP was planning releases in the city of migrants who had not undergone full processing, although he insisted they had been ‘vetted.’
  • Yuma County Supervisor Jonathan Lines said the process was an admission that federal authorities simply could not cope.
  • ‘This is decompressing and the federal government is relying on the local and state government to do its job,’ he said.
  • ‘It’s another failure of the Biden Administration to manage a problem they created with their open border policy.’

Read the original article by clicking here.

What is Title 42? What happens when it ends; and What do Americans think?

Deuteronomy 28:43-53 43 “Foreigners who live in your land will gain more and more power, while you gradually lose yours. 44 They will have money to lend you, but you will have none to lend them. In the end they will be your rulers. 45 “All these disasters will come on you, and they will be with you until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the Lord your God and keep all the laws that he gave you. 46 They will be the evidence of God’s judgment on you and your descendants forever. 47 The Lord blessed you in every way, but you would not serve him with glad and joyful hearts. 48 So then, you will serve the enemies that the Lord is going to send against you. You will be hungry, thirsty, and naked – in need of everything. The Lord will oppress you harshly until you are destroyed. 49 The Lord will bring against you a nation from the ends of the earth, a nation whose language you do not know. They will swoop down on you like an eagle. 50 They will be ruthless and show no mercy to anyone, young or old. 51 They will eat your livestock and your crops, and you will starve to death. They will not leave you any grain, wine, olive oil, cattle, or sheep; and you will die. 52 They will attack every town in the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and the high, fortified walls in which you trust will fall. 53 “When your enemies are besieging your towns, you will become so desperate for food that you will even eat the children that the Lord your God has given you.

Important Takeaways:

  • Explainer: What Happens When Biden Ends Title 42 at Border this Week
  • [First] What is Title 42?
  • In May 2020, less than a few months into the Chinese coronavirus pandemic, then-President Donald Trump invoked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Title 42 authority for the first time in American history to be used at the southern border.
  • Title 42, only previously used on foreign imports, gave Border Patrol agents another tool to quickly remove illegal aliens back to their native countries within hours after their arrival at the border for the sake of Americans’ public health.
  • The authority is akin to Title 8, the border control in U.S. law that gives the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) the ability to remove illegal aliens who are not eligible to remain in the U.S. after arriving at the border.
  • Since Trump imposed Title 42, the authority has ensured that close to three million illegal aliens have been quickly removed from the U.S. following their crossing the border.
  • What Happens After Title 42?
  • When Title 42 ends, an estimated 400,000 border crossers and illegal aliens are expected to arrive at the border every month — a foreign population that eclipses the resident population of cities like New Orleans, Louisiana; Tampa, Florida; Cleveland, Ohio; and Honolulu, Hawaii.
  • Currently, as many as 700,000 migrants are waiting to rush the border when Title 42 ends. Many will be released into American communities through a series of processes set up by Biden’s DHS.
  • What Do Americans Think?
  • In May 2022, as Biden sought to end Title 42, a Fox News poll found that 63 percent of voters wanted the president to keep the authority in place rather than removing it — including 77 percent of Republicans, 57 percent of swing voters, and 49 percent of Democrats.
  • The following month, an Axios poll found that Hispanic Americans, in particular, backed keeping Title 42 at the border. While 51 percent of Hispanics support Title 42, only 44 percent oppose the authority.
  • Hispanics who are the most assimilated to American life are the most likely to back Title 42, with 58 percent of second-generation Hispanics and 59 percent of third-generation Hispanics supporting the authority.

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Supreme Court rules to EPA needs Congress approval to set standards, Gives Biden thumbs up to end ‘Remain in Mexico policy’

Important Takeaways:

  • Supreme Court Issues Final Rulings, Curbs EPA Overreach, Gives Biden the OK to End ‘Remain in Mexico’
  • The most high-profile case today was about U.S. immigration policy. The Court said President Biden has the right to end the “Remain in Mexico” policy which was a Trump administration rule that allowed asylum seekers to be deported while they waited for their cases to be heard.
    • The policy was quite effective at stemming the flood of migrants at the border. Four months after it was put in place, detentions at the border declined more than 60 percent.
  • Court Tells EPA to Back Off
    • The high court also issued a ruling about government overreach, clarifying the separation of powers
    • The justices ruled 6-3 that the Environmental Protection Agency, which is currently controlled by the Biden administration, doesn’t have the power to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants unless Congress gives it the clear authority to do so.
    •  “Capping carbon dioxide emissions at a level that will force a nationwide transition away from the use of coal to generate electricity may be a sensible ‘solution to the crisis of the day’”
    • But he further explained, “A decision of such magnitude and consequence rests with Congress itself, or an agency acting pursuant to a clear delegation from that representative body.”
  • And finally at the Supreme Court today, there is a changing of the guard.
    • Justice Stephen Breyer officially steps down at noon, after serving 27 years. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the court’s first African-American woman, will then be sworn in.

Read the original article by clicking here.

10,000-strong migrant caravan heading to the United States

 

Important Takeaways:

  • The migrants are counting on President Joe Biden to cancel the Title 42 coronavirus protection protocol put in place during the Trump administration.
  • “He promised the Haitian community he will help them,” migrants told Fox News on Friday. “He will recall Title 42. He will help us have real asylum.”
  • The Biden Administration is in the process of appealing a court order stopping the administration from canceling the Title 42 protocol.
  • A combination of official and unofficial numbers from U.S. Customs and Border Protection sources show that more than 600,000 migrants crossed the U.S. border from Mexico since March 1. Ending Title 42 could bring approximately 18,000 illegal border crossers per day to the border

Read the original article by clicking here.

Most of 54 dead in Mexico truck crash were Guatemalans, Mexico says

By Jacob Garcia

TUXTLA GUTIERREZ, Mexico (Reuters) – Most of the victims of Thursday’s truck crash in southern Mexico that killed at least 54 people and injured dozens more were Guatemalan migrants, authorities said on Friday.

People spilled from the truck carrying an estimated 166 people after it flipped over on a curve outside the city of Tuxtla Gutierrez in the state of Chiapas, causing one of the worst death tolls of migrants in Mexico in the past decade.

The Mexican Attorney General’s office said it would investigate the incident, which state officials in Chiapas said had claimed the lives of 54 people and injured 58 others.

Authorities identified 95 Guatemalans among the people caught up in the accident, as well as three people from the Dominican Republic, a Honduran, a Mexican and an Ecuadorean.

Lists of people being treated in hospital published on social media showed dozens of Guatemalan migrants among the survivors. Local residents said other people fled the scene, apparently to evade arrest after the truck rolled over.

An unidentified Guatemalan man interviewed at the scene said when the trunk driver tried to negotiate the bend, the weight of people inside caused the vehicle flip over.

“The trailer couldn’t handle the weight of people,” he said.

Thousands of migrants fleeing poverty and violence in Central America travel through Mexico each month to reach the U.S. border. They often cram inside large trucks organized by smugglers in extremely dangerous conditions.

National and international leaders expressed consternation at the death toll, and urged migrants not to try their luck in making the journey north to the United States.

“Human smugglers disregard human life for their own profit. Please don’t risk your lives to migrate irregularly,” Ken Salazar, the U.S. ambassador to Mexico said on Twitter.

Many migrants fall prey to criminal gangs en route. In January, 19 people, mostly migrants, were massacred with suspected police involvement in northern Mexico.

Record numbers of people have been arrested on the U.S.-Mexico border this year as migrants seek to capitalize on President Joe Biden’s pledge to pursue more humane immigration policies than his hardline predecessor, Donald Trump.

Mexican authorities in Chiapas have attempted to persuade migrants to not form caravans to walk thousands of miles to the U.S. border, and have begun transporting people from the southern city of Tapachula to other regions of the country.

(Additional reporting by Lizbeth Diaz and Jose Torres; Writing by Dave Graham; Editing by Alison Williams)

Belarus denies aggravating migrant situation at Polish border

KYIV (Reuters) – Belarus on Tuesday said its security services did not aggravate the migrant situation at the border by throwing firecrackers or taking other actions as Poland claimed the previous day.

The Belarus State Border Committee rejected the allegation by Polish Border Guard Captain Krystyna Jakimik-Jarosz and accused the Polish government of avoiding scrutiny of its own activities.

“Poland deliberately spreads fake information in order to hide from the public the real picture of the events taking place on the border,” the spokesman for the border committee Anton Bychkovsky said in a statement to Reuters.

Poland’s government maintains all of the allegations it has presented against the Belarusian authorities, special services spokesperson Stanislaw Zaryn told Reuters.

Thousands of people mostly from the Middle East have crossed the Polish border from Belarus since the summer, with the European Union accusing Minsk of flying them in and pushing them to cross into the bloc via neighboring Poland.

International organizations have said Poland was breaching humanitarian standards in forcing some migrants back into Belarus, a charge the Warsaw government denies.

On Monday, there were 116 attempts to cross the border. By contrast, on Nov. 17, 501 attempts were reported.

(Reporting by Kacper Pempel; additional reporting by Matthias Williams and Natalia Zinets and Joanna Plucinska in Warsaw; Writing by Alan Charlish; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

French police evict migrants from camp on Channel coast

By Juliette Jabkhiro

GRANDE-SYNTHE, France (Reuters) – Police on Tuesday tore down a makeshift camp near the northern French port of Dunkirk where scores of migrants who say they are fleeing war, poverty and persecution in the Middle East were hunkered down with hopes of reaching Britain.

Armed officers entered the camp, which runs along a disused railway line, before workers in protective suits pulled down tents and plastic shelters.

Charity workers say the 27 migrants who drowned in the Channel last Wednesday had stayed in the same area before they attempted the perilous sea crossing from France to Britain last Wednesday. Their dinghy deflated in the open sea.

The number of migrants crossing the Channel has surged to 25,776 in 2021, up from 8,461 in 2020 and 1,835 in 2019, according to tallies compiled by the BBC using Home Office data.

The spike in numbers has angered Britain, which accuses France of doing too little to stem the flow. Paris says that once migrants reach the shores of the channel, it is too late to prevent them crossing.

French police routinely tear up the camps that spring up between Calais and Dunkirk. Evictions at the Grande-Synthe site had been taking place on a weekly basis for the past few weeks, one charity worker said.

The migrants are typically transported to holding centers scattered across the country where they are encouraged to file for asylum, though many quickly make their way back to the Channel coast.

Hussein Hamid, 25, an Iranian Kurd, said it was the second time he had been evicted. On the first occasion, he was bussed to Lyon 760km to the south.

Hamid tried to leave the camp swiftly by foot, carrying a backpack, but said the police had blocked any way out.

An Iraqi Kurd told Reuters by text message that he was hiding nearby while the police conducted their operation.

“I’ll come back if they don’t find me,” he said, requesting anonymity to avoid police reprisals.

President Emmanuel Macron on Friday told Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson to “get serious” in the effort to curb migrant flows, as post-Brexit relations between their governments deteriorate.

(Reporting by Judith Jabkhiro; Writing by Richard Lough, Editing by Alex Richardson and Ed Osmond)

New caravan sets off from Mexico as officials struggle with immigration claims

By Jose Luis Gonzalez

TAPACHULA, Mexico (Reuters) – Some 2,000 migrants and asylum seekers departed the southern Mexican city of Tapachula near the Guatemalan border overnight on Sunday in the latest in a series of caravans setting out for the United States.

By Monday morning, the caravan had advanced about 25 kilometers (15 mi) to reach the town of Huehuetan, according to a Reuters witness.

The majority of its members were families from Central America and the Caribbean fleeing violence, poverty and growing hunger crises in their home countries.

For months, migrants and human rights advocates have denounced the “prison-like” conditions in Tapachula. Under Mexican rules, migrants must wait to process their claims – often for months – before being able to relocate to other parts of the country without fear of deportation.

Thousands of migrants waited on Monday in an hours-long line inside a stadium where immigration officials had set up a processing center.

“In Tapachula, there’s no life for migrants. We don’t have work, we don’t have money to pay for housing,” said Atis, a Haitian migrant waiting in line who declined to give his last name.

“We’re waiting here at immigration, but if there’s no other option, then we’ll leave here on foot, in another caravan.”

Last week, the Mexican government transported hundreds of migrants from Tapachula to other states in efforts to head off the formation of more caravans. But tens of thousands of migrants still remain in the city.

(Reporting by Jose Luis Gonzalez; Writing by Laura Gottesdiener; Editing by Daina Solomon and Dan Grebler)

Poland says Belarus ferries migrants back to border after clearing camps

By Yara Abi Nader and Kacper Pempel

BIELSK PODLASKI, Poland/BRUZGI, Belarus (Reuters) -Poland accused Belarus on Friday of trucking hundreds of migrants back to the border and pushing them to attempt to cross illegally, only hours after clearing camps at a frontier that has become the focus of an escalating East-West crisis.

The accusation by Poland suggests the crisis has not been resolved by an apparent change of tack by Minsk, which on Thursday had cleared the main camps by the border and allowed the first repatriation flight to Iraq in months.

European governments accuse Belarus of flying in thousands of people from the Middle East and pushing them to attempt to illegally cross the EU border, where several people have died in the freezing woods. Belarus denies fomenting the crisis.

Polish Border Guard spokesperson Anna Michalska said that by Thursday evening, just hours after clearing the camps, Belarus authorities were already trucking hundreds back and forcing them to try to cross in darkness.

“(The Belarusians) were bringing more migrants to the place where there was a forced attempt to cross,” Michalska said. “At the beginning there were 100 people, but then the Belarusian side brought more people in trucks. Then there were 500 people.”

When the migrants tried to cross the border, Belarusian troops blinded Polish guards with lasers, she told a news conference. Some migrants had thrown logs and four guards sustained minor injuries.

Access to the border on the Polish side is restricted by a state of emergency, making it difficult to verify her account.

‘NIGHTMARE’

In an interview with the BBC, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko repeated denials that he had orchestrated the crisis but, asked if Belarus was helping migrants try and cross into Poland, he said: “I think that’s absolutely possible. We’re Slavs. We have hearts. Our troops know the migrants are going to Germany. Maybe someone helped them. I won’t even look into this.”

The migrants from the camp on the Belarus side were taken on Thursday to a huge, crowded warehouse and journalists were permitted to film them. Children ran about on Friday morning, and men played cards while one dangled a toddler on his lap.

“This is not a life but this is not permanent, this should be just temporary until they decide our destiny: to take us to Europe or bring us back to our countries,” said 23-year-old electrician Mohammed Noor.

“What I wish for myself, I wish it for others too – to go to Europe and live a stable life.”

Meanwhile in a hospital in Bielsk Podlaski, on the Polish side, two migrants who had been caught after crossing were given treatment before being taken away by Polish border guards.

Before he was taken away, Mansour Nassar, 42, a father-of-six from Aleppo, in Syria, who had travelled to Belarus from Lebanon, described his ordeal during five days in the forest.

“The Belarusian army told us: ‘If you come back, we will kill you’,” he said, in tears in his hospital bed. “We drank from ponds… Our people are always oppressed.”

Kassam Shahadah, a Syrian refugee doctor living in Poland who helps out in another hospital, said patients were terrified of being forcibly returned to Belarus.

“What they have seen, what they have lived through on that side is a nightmare for them,” he said.

EXTREME SUFFERING

Human rights groups say Poland has exacerbated the suffering by sending back those who try to cross. Poland says this is necessary to stop more people from coming.

“I have personally listened to the appalling accounts of extreme suffering from desperate people – among whom many families, children and elderly – who spent weeks or even months in squalid and extreme conditions in the cold and wet woods due to these pushbacks,” Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Dunja Mijatović said after a four-day mission to Poland.

“I have witnessed clear signs of their painful ordeal: wounds, frostbite, exposure to extreme cold, exhaustion and stress,” she said. “I have no doubt that returning any of these people to the border will lead to more extreme human suffering and more deaths.”

The Polish border guards have recorded seven deaths at the border. Rights groups say more than 10 people have died.

‘CYNICAL AND INHUMANE’

Europeans have shunned Lukashenko since a disputed election last year, but reached out cautiously this week, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaking to Lukashenko twice by phone.

However, on Thursday the European Commission and Germany rejected a proposal that Minsk said Lukashenko had made to Merkel, under which EU countries would take in 2,000 migrants, while 5,000 others would be sent back home..

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Friday that the situation on the borders remained deeply concerning.

“Lukashenko’s regime’s use of vulnerable people as a means to put pressure on other countries is cynical and inhumane,” he said. “NATO stands in full solidarity with all affected allies.”

(Reporting by Joanna Plucinska, Pawel Florkiewicz, Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk, Leon Malherbe, Yara Abi Nader, Kacper Pempel, Stephan Schepers, Andrius Sytas; Writing by Joanna Plucinska and Ingrid Melander; Editing by Peter Graff and Alex Richardson)