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The Trump administration has revised training guidelines for asylum officers in ways that could make it harder for migrants seeking refuge in the United States to pass an initial screening. The revisions to a lesson plan used by hundreds of asylum officers suggest the Trump administration is finding new ways to narrow who can access asylum as bolder policy proposals with that same goal have been blocked by federals courts, said former government officials and immigration experts who reviewed the internal plan that was shared with Reuters. The changes could potentially lead to more denials and deportations before migrants’ full...

The 16-year-old boy who died in U.S. custody April 30, days after crossing the southern border following a long and perilous trek from Guatemala "was a very nice student, intelligent, creative, but shy," according to a former teacher. Juan de León Gutiérrez's former elementary school teacher described him as a hardworking boy who helped his father in the region's dwindling coffee fields, where drought and decreasing prices have led to debt and unemployment. Gutiérrez was apprehended by border patrol agents near El Paso on April 19 and transported the next evening to Casa Padre, a shelter for unaccompanied migrant children...

Pope Francis donated $500,000 to Mexico-based projects to help migrant communities as media attention has faded, the Vatican said Saturday. The funds will be distributed between 27 projects associated with 16 Mexican dioceses and congregations, all of which asked for help to continue providing food, lodging, and basic necessities to those fleeing their home countries through Mexico. “In recent months, thousands of migrants have arrived in Mexico, having travelled more than 4,000 kilometers on foot and with makeshift vehicles from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. Men and women, often with young children, flee poverty and violence, hoping for a better...

GAVIN NEWSOM VISITS TOMB OF ST. OSCAR ROMERO IN EL SALVADOR Newsom visited the tomb Sunday on his first international trip to El Salvador, accompanied by his wife Jennifer Siebel Newsom and Assemblywoman Wendy Carrillo, the only Salvadoran immigrant in the California Legislature. Newsom said he chose El Salvador for his first international trip because the state’s relationship with Central America is key to California’s future. Nearly 680,000 Salvadoran immigrants live in California, he notes.

President Donald Trump said Friday that there was no need for a summit with the Presidents of Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador because "they understand" the implications of his recent move to cut stabilizing aid to the Central American countries. Trump's dismissal of a summit comes in light of a recent uptick in Mexico's apprehensions of migrants at its southern border, shared with Central America. It remains unclear whether the increase was spurred by Trump's threat to shut down the US-Mexico border if Mexico didn't stop migrants from illegally crossing the US border or simply from greater immigration traffic.

Trump has claimed that the countries had "set up" caravans of migrants in order to export them into the United States The United States is cutting off aid to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, known collectively as the "Northern Triangle," the State Department said on Saturday, a day after President Donald Trump blasted the Central American countries for sending migrants to the United States. "We are carrying out the President's direction and ending FY (fiscal year) 2017 and FY 2018 foreign assistance programs for the Northern Triangle," a State Department spokesperson said in a statement. The department declined to provide...

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Thursday tackling illegal immigration is an issue chiefly for the United States and Central America to address, as a senior Mexican official called U.S. policy on migration "bipolar." Speaking after renewed criticism by his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump on Twitter, Lopez Obrador said Mexico would help to check the flow of migrants heading north, but that his country was no longer the main driver of the phenomenon. Migrants illegally crossing the U.S. border have caused persistent bilateral tension ever since Trump launched his bid for the presidency almost...

In a stunning about-face, State Department officials said that President Donald Trump is cutting off all direct assistance to the so-called Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. “At the Secretary’s instruction, we are carrying out the President’s direction and ending FY [fiscal year] 2017 and FY 2018 foreign assistance programs for the Northern Triangle,” a State Department spokesperson told ABC News, referring to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. “We will be engaging Congress as part of this process.” (MORE: Trump threatens to completely close southern border as early as next week if Mexico doesn't stop 'illegal...

With 1.5 million illegal aliens from Central America rolling into the U.S., President Trump has declared an emergency in order to construct a badly needed wall at the border, and now he has threatened to shut the gates of the border down, too, unless Mexico's government quits enabling the problem. It's a major issue, and a recent poll shows that many Americans want it dealt with as a top priority. Who should show up to throw a stick into these turning wheels but California's Gov. Gavin Newsom, who's announced his first gubernatorial trip abroad to El Salvador for the purpose...

A man has been sentenced to life in prison for raping and killing a Muslim teenager as she walked back to a mosque with friends for pre-dawn religious services. The life sentence without possibility of parole imposed Thursday on Darwin Martinez-Torres of Sterling was a formality after his guilty plea last year in the June 2017 slaying of 17-year-old Nabra Hassanen of Reston. That plea bargain required a life sentence but eliminated a potential death penalty. Hassanen's death received widespread attention amid concerns her slaying was motivated by anti-Muslim sentiment. But prosecutors say Martinez-Torres attacked her after he got out...

Emotions ran high at a San Jose, Calif. community meeting this week where residents questioned local officials about the brutal stabbing death of Bambi Larson, who was allegedly killed by an undocumented immigrant wanted by federal immigration officials for deportation. Authorities said Carlos Eduardo Arevalo Carranza – a native of El Salvador with a long criminal history and admitted gang ties -- stalked Larson, 59, before the February attack in her home. A Message from accenture.com Sponsored Video Watch to learn more “He had a crime record,” San Jose resident Connie Schneider told the Bay Area's FOX 2. “He shouldn't...

DENVER - Authorities tracked a wanted man, reportedly part of the MS-13 gang, to Colorado. ICE announced the deportation of 23-year-old Oscar Antonio Rosas-Alas. He was located and arrested in Eagle County in March of 2018. He was deported on Wednesday. Rosas-Alas was wanted in his home country of El Salvador for aggravated extortion. Authorities say he entered the country illegally and made his way to Colorado where he "gained the attention of local peace officers." “Our ICE officers aggressively work to remove dangerous criminal aliens from the United States, such as Rosas-Alas,” said Jeffrey D. Lynch, field office director...

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) and U.S. special envoy to Venezuela Elliott Abrams got into a fiery exchange on Wednesday that began with her wondering why anything he said could be considered credible after his role in the Iran-Contra scandal. One reason people can get away with taking cheap shots at Elliott Abrams is because there arenÂ’t a dozen people in DC, and zero reporters, who know a thing about US policy in Latin America in the 1980's. LetÂ’s decipher what Ms. Omar said: She went on to recount his 1982 congressional testimony about U.S. policy toward El Salvador, where...

Democrats are calling President Trump every name in the book and threatening multiple lawsuits to overturn his Friday declaration of a national emergency on our southern border. The president is using the declaration to enable him to shift funds already in the federal budget to border security. The shifting of money from one set of priorities to the more urgent priority of border security will allow the president to spend over $8.1 billion to build barriers along part of our border with Mexico and fund other border security measures. But listen to the angry denunciations of the president by outraged...

...The issue of Central American caravans — who joins them, how large they are, where they are going, if more are forming — has been a pressing one for both the U.S. and Mexican governments and for communities along the way. In recent days, social media sites have been spreading word of a new caravan scheduled to leave San Pedro Sula, Honduras, on Feb. 16. (snip) ... Mexican authorities announced they were entering a new phase that allows the Central American migrants to apply for the visas in their home countries. They said that Mexico also will begin offering residents...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) reportedly warned President Trump this week that declaring a national emergency to build his U.S.-Mexico border wall could create a rift in the GOP conference. The Washington Post reported Friday that McConnell told Trump the Senate could pass a resolution disapproving the emergency declaratioN.

The Trump administration began implementing a new hard-line immigration policy by sending a single asylum-seeker from Central America back to Tijuana, Mexico, to await his assigned court date later this year in San Diego. The first asylum-seeker to be returned to Mexico was a Honduran man identified as Carlos Catarlo Gomez. He appeared confused and scared by the throng of reporters waiting for him Tuesday on the Mexican side of the San Ysidro border crossing, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was whisked away by Mexican authorities. Officially dubbed "Migrant Protection Protocols," the policy was announced by Homeland Security...

Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) said President Donald Trump declaring a national emergency to build a wall on the U.S. Mexico border would be a “terrible idea” and that he would fight it. RUBIO: Sure. Because I think it’s important. Look I don’t think we will have to fight. I’m not sure they will do that. I know it’s an option they looked at. But now you are at the mercy of a district court and ultimately an appellate court. It may not withstand if you look at some of the other rulings we have...

Pope Francis said Wednesday that fear of migration is “making us crazy” as he began a trip to Central America amid a standoff over President Donald Trump’s promised wall at the U.S.-Mexico border and a new caravan of migrants heading north. Francis was asked by reporters about the proposed border wall Wednesday on the way to Panama, where he is looking to leave the sex abuse scandals buffeting his papacy behind. Francis responded: “It is the fear that makes us crazy.” The Roman Catholic Church’s first Latin American pope and the son of Italian immigrants to Argentina, Francis has made...

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., acknowledged Wednesday on Fox News' "Special Report with Bret Baier" that border walls "obviously" work in some areas, and he rejected suggestions that barriers should be removed where they already exist. The No. 2 House Democrat additionally asserted that the question of whether to fund President Trump's proposed border wall -- a dispute at the center of the unprecedented partial federal government shutdown -- is "not an issue of morality." Hoyer's comments were seemingly at odds with the positions of other House Democrats, who have argued that border walls like the one Trump is...