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FORT WALTON BEACH, Fla. (WEAR) — A Honduras citizen is being held in the Okaloosa County jail after being accused of cutting a child's throat with a knife. The incident happened on Monday on Tyner Street in Fort Walton Beach. The Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office arrest report says the 13-year-old victim said 34-year-old Armando Moreno was upset because of some text messages. That's when he grabbed the child by her hair, pressed a knife to her throat and slapped her on the face, the report states. The knife was pressed against her throat so hard that it caused a two...

A federal appeals court sided with the Trump administration on Friday in the legal battle over its efforts to limit asylum claims from Central America – blocking, for now, a nationwide injunction that blocked the implementation of the rule. Last month a California federal judge blocked the rule that would require migrants to first apply in one of the countries they cross on their way to the U.S. – with certain exceptions. The rule is tailored to target Central Americans from the Northern Triangle of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras who would travel across multiple countries, including Mexico, before claiming...

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF/AP) — A drug pipeline into San Francisco’s crime-ridden Tenderloin District, fueled by Honduran nationals who lived in the East Bay, has been busted up by federal agents who have arrested 32 suspects, authorities announced Wednesday. Chris Nielsen, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration in San Francisco, told reporters that an investigation was launched in late 2017 in cooperation with San Francisco and Richmond police and uncovered two independent drug operations stretching from Mexico to Seattle. The drugs hitting the streets according to the DEA were methamphetamine, fentanyl, heroin and cocaine. “These are small...

President Donald Trump just can't be correct about anything having to do with Baltimore, right? Well, when a Baltimore television station, WJZ, fact checked a White House claim that Baltimore has a higher murder rate than the Central American countries of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, perhaps they expected that assertion would be proven false. So imagine their surprise at what their fact check revealed. 

Austin Police arrested a man accused of raping a 15-year-old girl under the Loop 360 bridge near Bull Creek on Wednesday, according to official police documents. The suspect, 21-year-old Yeison Misael Ortiz-Ortiz, was arrested and charged with sexual assault of a child, a second-degree felony... The victim told officers she saw Ortiz-Ortiz with a group of people as she was walking down the trail. She said as she was swimming Ortiz-Ortiz approached her and offered her a cigarette, which she accepted... Bail has been set for $100,000 and Ortiz-Ortiz is ordered to have no contact with the victim. The affidavit...

A caravan-size influx of migrants is flooding across the border each week in just a single sector, a top Border Patrol official told lawmakers Tuesday -- the latest indicator of the growing migration crisis on the southern border. “Much media attention has focused on caravans coming across from Central America,” Rio Grande Valley Sector Chief Patrol Agent Rodolfo Karisch said at a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing. “But the fact is that RGV is receiving caravan-equivalent numbers every seven days.” Karisch said his sector has apprehended people from 50 different countries, including China, Bangladesh, Turkey, Egypt and Romania. “People are...

As promised, Trump slashes aid to Central America over migrants WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration on Monday cut hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, after Trump blasted the three countries because thousands of their citizens had sought asylum at the U.S. border with Mexico. *** Congressional aides said the administration told them it would reallocate $370 million in aid to Central America that lawmakers had approved for fiscal 2018, and suspend an additional $180 million Congress had approved for fiscal 2017. *** No funds will be provided until the administration...

The Trump administration is facing growing complaints from migrants about severe overcrowding, meager food and other hardships at border holding centers, with some people at an encampment in El Paso being forced to sleep on the bare ground during dust storms. The Border Network for Human Rights issued a report Friday based on dozens of testimonials of immigrants over the past month and a half, providing a snapshot of cramped conditions and prolonged stays in detention amid a record surge of migrant families coming into the U.S. from Central America. The report comes a day after an advocate described finding...

Latin America accounts for one third of world's homicides, life expectancy dropping in some countries: study. (Full title). The rising number of people being murdered across Latin America and the Caribbean is so high that the life expectancy in some of those countries is dropping, a new study claims. Unlike the rest of the world where homicide rates have generally dropped, statistics in some countries show that the murder rate has skyrocketed in recent years. So much so, that Latin America now accounts for about a third of the world’s homicides. ... more than 2 million people aged 15-19 in...

<p>NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. federal court documents show Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández and some of his closest advisers were among the targets of a Drug Enforcement Administration investigation.</p> <p>A document filed by prosecutors on Tuesday in the Southern District of New York mentions Hernández as part of a group of individuals investigated by the DEA since about 2013 for participating “in large-scale drug-trafficking and money laundering activities relating to the importation of cocaine into the United States”.</p>

President Trump announced Thursday he’s slapping tariffs on all goods imported from Mexico as punishment for what he darkly described as the country’s failure to combat “chaos” on the U.S. southern border. In a Twitter statement, Trump announced a 5% tariff on all Mexican imports will start June 10. […] The potentially economically crippling tariffs — which will be paid by American consumers of Mexican goods — are allowed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, Trump said. In his statement, Trump painted the unprecedented number of migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border with a broad and fear-mongering brush.“Gang members,...

SEATTLE - A federal judge says police in Tukwila acted unconstitutionally when they arrested an illegal immigrant and turned him over to immigration authorities for deportation. Wilson Rodriguez Macareno, who is originally from Honduras, called police early last year about someone trespassing in his yard. The officers instead arrested him based on indications he was in the country illegally and brought him to a detention center for deportation. U.S. District Judge Richard Jones ruled Wednesday that the local police did not have the authority to arrest him for a civil, federal violation. He said a trial will be held to...

In a shocking demonstration of the latest surge of illegal immigrants over 1% of the populations of Guatemala and Honduras have entered the US since September......Worse, 3% of the population of 'one' Guatemalan county has crossed into the U.S., acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin K. McAleenan stated...."The situation is not sustainable,” said the longtime border and immigration official. Overall, he predicted the April numbers of illegal immigrants will be even worse than the jaw-dropping March figures which shocked the White House into shaking up its immigration team. “In March, we had over 103,000 irregular arrivals of undocumented migrants — 90%...

A multilateral military treaty between Honduras, Israel, and the United States will see the deployment of 1000 Israeli soldiers at Honduras. They will train the Armed Forces of Honduras (FFAA) and National Police (PN). The main mission of the troops is to train for border protection to stop migrants fleeing Honduras to the U.S., especially children. This would be the second time that Honduras is allowing foreign military personnel in the territory and the first time in Israel’s history to send troops abroad. Apart from border protection, fight against drug trafficking, investigation, and counterterrorism will be offered as well.

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...

The FBI is investigating anti-fascist activists for an alleged plot to buy guns from a Mexican cartel in order to “stage an armed rebellion” at the southern border, according to an unclassified document obtained by The Chicago Tribune. The FBI document, from December of 2018, warns of militant antifa activists planning to “disrupt security operations” at the U.S.-Mexico border. The group allegedly planned to buy guns from a Mexican cartel associate known as Cobra Commander, in order to “stage an armed rebellion at the border.” The source who provided it to the San Diego Tribune asked the outlet not to...

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...

Illegal aliens from Ecuador and Honduras assaulted Border Patrol agents this week in Arizona. "A Yuma Station Border Patrol agent was assaulted by an illegal alien Sunday morning, just 10 hours before agents with the Yuma Sector Border Patrol Search Trauma and Rescue Team undertook a humanitarian mission to rescue two illegal aliens who were stranded in the desert," U.S. Customs and Border Protection [CBP] released in a statement. "On Sunday morning, three subjects made an illegal entry into the United States near Andrade, California. Agents apprehended one of the illegal aliens in the group without incident. As they...

Attorney General William Barr said in a new ruling issued Tuesday that asylum seekers who are able to demonstrate a "credible fear" and are then sent to full deportation proceedings are not eligible to be released on bond. The ruling, which will go into effect in 90 days, states that a previous decision allowing for asylum seekers to be released on bond while their case is being heard by an immigration judge was incorrect. Only the Department of Homeland Security has the authority to release the asylum seekers, he wrote. “I conclude that such aliens remain ineligible for bond, whether...