Free Republic

As much of California begins allowing businesses to reopen amid improved coronavirus conditions, a farming region bordering Mexico is experiencing a spike in hospitalizations that some believe is driven by American citizens who live in Mexico coming to the U.S. for care. How quickly different parts of California reopen depends on the ability by country officials to control the virus. So the surge in the Imperial Valley region could hurt its perpetually struggling economy, which is heavily intertwined with the large industrial city of Mexicali, Mexico. El Centro Regional Medical Center, the Imperial Valley's largest hospital, admitted 14 infected patients...

Beginning this week, Mexican nationals arrested for crossing the border illegally will be flown to Mexico City instead of being dropped off at ports of entry... Border Patrol officials said the change in policy was needed to keep Mexican nationals from repeatedly trying to cross into the United States. According to CBP, at least one migrant had been expelled and caught as many as 10 times. People from nations other than Mexico, were already being flown back to their countries of origin.

Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said (today, 19 May, that) the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were extending Title 42 public health restrictions at the Canadian and Mexican borders until he determines the danger from COVID-19 has ceased... The restrictions pretty much limits admission into the United States to American citizens and legal permanent residents and exclude people from countries were the coronavirus remains active. Unlike the previous orders, which lasted a month, the latest extension doesn’t have an expiration date. “(It) shall remain in effect until … the danger of further introduction...

The Trump administration announced Friday that it is waiving several regulations in order to fast-track construction of nearly 70 miles of border barriers and roads in Webb and Zapata counties. The move marks a significant step in fulfilling Trump's election-year goal to have hundreds of miles of fencing or wall in place by the end of the year. The waiver allows the Department of Homeland Security to circumvent regulations mandated in the National Environmental Policy Act, the Federal Water Pollution Control Act and the National Historic Preservation Act, among others, according to text of the notice posted in the federal...

MORTON, Mississippi - The Koch Foods chicken-processing plant dominates the small town of Morton, where even the sides of the roads are dotted with feathers. For more than a decade, the lives of Pedro Vasquez and Zoila Orozco have revolved around the plant. It set the stage for some of their greatest joys: They fell in love there, had a little boy and eventually saved enough money to buy a small house, far from their native Guatemala. It also has been the source of some of their most profound sorrows: Zoila claims she was the victim of an abusive supervisor,...

<p>HOUSTON - The young migrants and asylum seekers swim across the Rio Grande and clamber into the dense brush of Texas. Many are teens who left Central America on their own; others were sent along by parents from refugee camps in Mexico. They are as young as 10.</p>

181 miles completed, 190 miles under construction, 360 miles under pre-construction.

Tucson Sector Border Patrol agents arrested two human smugglers who were allegedly armed with an AR-15 rifle. The agents also arrested three Mexican nationals who entered the U.S. illegally.

SWANTON, Vt. (AP) — The number of people apprehended for illegally crossing from Canada into the United States along its northern border has nearly tripled over the past three years, and a growing portion is Mexican citizens, according to federal data. One Mexican man who crossed illegally to work on a Vermont dairy farm said it was easier than trying the southern border. U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics obtained by The Associated Press after a public records request provide new detail on what was apparent anecdotally: Along the border from Maine to Washington, 446 of the 1,586 illegal crossers...

SWANTON, Vt. -- The number of people apprehended for illegally crossing from Canada into the United States along its northern border has nearly tripled over the past three years, and a growing portion are Mexican citizens, according to federal data. One Mexican man who crossed illegally to work on a Vermont dairy farm said it was easier than trying the southern border. U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics obtained by The Associated Press after a public records request provide new detail on what was apparent anecdotally: Along the border from Maine to Washington, 446 of the 1,586 illegal crossers apprehended...

Almost all undocumented immigrants apprehended at the southwest border in April were immediately expelled to Mexico as part of the Trump administration's increased immigration controls amid the coronavirus pandemic. Numbers released by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) show that 90 percent of all apprehensions were treated as Title 42 cases — subject to immediate expulsion per a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) order. In total, 15,862 people were apprehended at the southwest border in April; 14,416 were processed as Title 42 cases, while only 1,446 were processed as Title 8 — individuals who violated immigration law by entering...

GUATEMALA CITY - Migrants returning from the United States were once considered heroes in Guatemala, where the money they send back to their hometowns is a mainstay of the economy. But since the coronavirus pandemic hit, migrants in town after town have been mistreated, run off or threatened by neighbors who fear they will bring the virus back with them from the United States. Vanessa Díaz said her mother heard rumors that neighbors were organizing to keep her from reaching her home in the northern province of Petén after she was deported back to Guatemala on a flight from the...

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North and South Korean troops exchanged fire along their tense border on Sunday, the South’s military said, blaming North Korean soldiers for targeting a guard post. The Joint Chiefs of Staff in Seoul said in a statement that North Korean troops fired several bullets at a South Korean guard post inside the heavily fortified border. South Korea fired two rounds in response after issuing a warning broadcast, it said. MORE AT LINK

SAN DIEGO - The Trump administration on Thursday suspended immigration court hearings for asylum-seekers waiting in Mexico through June 1, bowing to public health concerns while extending a state of limbo those locked down in Mexican migrant shelters. With an order suspending hearings through Friday set to expire, the Homeland Security and Justice departments said that asylum-seekers with hearings through June 1 should appear at a border crossing when instructed to get new dates. They said that authorities will review conditions related to the coronavirus and proceed “as expeditiously as possible,” raising the prospect of additional delays. While it is...

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials report that an illegal alien from India tested positive for the coronavirus (COVID-19) after he illegally crossed the border with a group of Mexican nationals. CBP Acting Commissioner Mark Morgan reported that Border Patrol agents patrolling near Calexico, California, apprehended a group of three Mexican nationals and an Indian national after they illegally crossed the border from Mexico. Border Patrol agents quickly returned the Mexican nationals to their home country under anti-coronavirus policies. “On Thursday, April 23, a U.S. Border Patrol agent apprehended three Mexican nationals and one Indian national suspected of having illegally...

When it unveiled an unprecedented order last month to swiftly expel virtually all unauthorized migrants from the U.S. southern border, the Trump administration said potentially infected foreigners could spread the coronavirus in the U.S., prompt outbreaks in immigration jails and strain public health resources along border communities. But in a paradoxical twist, Guatemala, the largest source of migration to the U.S.-Mexico border in recent years, fears the U.S. is exporting the virus there through its deportation policy. At least 99 migrants recently deported to Guatemala by the U.S. have tested positive for coronavirus as of Sunday, according to the nation's...

Latin America has some of the most overcrowded jails in the world. With prisoners crammed into tiny cells by the dozen, social distancing is impossible and poor medical facilities mean any outbreak of coronavirus would spread like wildfire. The United Nations has urged governments to do more to protect inmates and has suggested the most vulnerable be temporarily released to ease overcrowding. Chile, Colombia and Nicaragua have announced they will move thousands of prisoners into house arrest with priority given to the elderly, pregnant women and those with underlying conditions. Brazil has already started moving inmates over 60 into house...

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico has almost entirely cleared out its migrant shelters over the past five weeks to contain the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, returning most of the occupants to their countries of origin, official data showed on Sunday. In a statement, the National Migration Institute (INM) said that in order to comply with health and safety guidelines, since March 21 it had been removing migrants from Mexico’s 65 migrant facilities, which were harboring 3,759 people last month. In the intervening weeks, Mexico has returned 3,653 migrants to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador by road and air with...

NEW YORK - Ulises García went from being a waiter to working at a laundromat. Yelitza Esteva used to do manicures and now delivers groceries. Maribel Torres swapped cleaning homes for sewing masks. The coronavirus pandemic has devastated sectors of the economy dominated by immigrant labor: Restaurants, hotels, office cleaning services, in-home childcare and hair and nail salons, among others, have seen businesses shuttered as nonessential. The Migration Policy Institute found that 20% of the U.S. workers in vulnerable industries facing layoffs are immigrants, even though they only make up 17% of the civilian workforce. And some of those immigrants,...

President Donald Trump said Monday that the coronavirus hasn't slowed his administration's goal of completing the border wall by next spring. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite, updating reporters during the daily press briefing, said 164 miles out of 450 miles of fencing planned along the nearly 2,000-mile Mexican border is on track to be completed by the end of 2020. "Our contractors are extremely focused,' Semonite said. Some senate Democrats want to know why the wall on the southern border is still being built during the coronavirus pandemic and amid strict national social distancing guidance. Semonite...