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New York City defied a deportation request from ICE last year and released an illegal immigrant into the community — and now he stands accused of killing a 92-year-old woman beloved by her community. Reeaz Khan, 21, has been charged with murder and sexual abuse against someone incapable of consent. Police say they caught him initiating the attack on surveillance video. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says he never should have been out on the streets anyway, after he was arrested on weapons and assault charged last year, and ICE asked New York to turn him over. Police refused, under...

A U.S. judge ruled Monday that the Trump administration is operating within its authority when separating families stopped at the Mexico border, rejecting arguments that it was quietly returning to widespread practices that drew international condemnation. The American Civil Liberties Union argued that the administration was splitting families over dubious allegations and minor transgressions including traffic offenses. It asked the judge in July to rule on whether the government was justified in separating 911 children during the first year after the judge halted the general practice in June 2018. U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw indicated he was uncomfortable second-guessing government...

<p>DONALD JOHN TRUMP Coalition forms to back Trump rollback of major environmental law Canadian CEO blasts Trump over downed plane in Iran: 'I am livid' Business groups worry they won't see a Phase 2 Trump-China trade deal MORE plans to divert $7.2 billion from the Pentagon to go toward border wall construction this year, an amount five times greater than what Congress authorized in the budget, the Washington Post reported.</p>

About 1 mile of a planned 3-mile section of new border wall has already gone up near the town of Fronton in western Starr County, Texas. This is only the second government project in South Texas that has metal bollards already erected, and this site is significantly further along than the one south of Donna in Hidalgo County. (Construction of a privately funded border wall on private property next to the Rio Grande also is underway south of Mission, Texas.) Both government projects were started two months ago, but U.S. Border Patrol agents said that unlike the Donna project, this...

The Trump administration on Friday marked the 100th mile of wall construction along the southern border -- describing it as a “milestone achievement” and promising that there are many more miles to come by the end of the year. “Today is a milestone that has been reached and a celebration is in order,” Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said in front of wall in Yuma, Arizona... President Trump tweeted: "Entire Wall is under construction or getting ready to start!"

Three students attending Mountain View High School were ordered to leave the U.S. midway through the fall semester. School staff say it marks the first time in recent memory that any student had to leave the district because of involuntary deportation. Daniella Quinones confirmed that three students enrolled in the district's English Language Development program have left the school after immigration court judges ruled they had to leave the country. Despite serving some of the most affluent communities in the Bay Area, the Mountain View-Los Altos District is also home to high-needs students who have recently arrived in the country....

A federal appeals court has ruled the Trump administration can divert $3.6 billion in military funds to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Multiple reports indicate the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to temporarily stay a lower court ruling out of Texas. Reuters reports the stay is pending an appeal by the Trump administration of the ruling by a federal judge that prevented the transfer of funds. El Paso County, Texas, and the Border Network for Human Rights have been challenging the funds transfer. The panel noted that the U.S. Supreme Court had issued a stay in...

Tommy Fisher, founder of Fisher Sand & Gravel, is waiting for the chance to prove he can build President Trump’s signature border wall faster and better than the government. But first, the courts have to decide. U.S. District Judge Randy Crane in McAllen, a southern Texas city, is expected on Thursday to decide whether to lift a temporary restraining order against the project to build a privately funded border wall next to the Rio Grande. Dating back to the Secure Fence Act of 2006, the U.S. has largely avoided building right next to the Rio Grande. The meandering river separating...

A federal appeals court in Louisiana on Wednesday ruled the government can use $3.6 billion in military funds to construct border barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border. In a 2-1 ruling, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, based in New Orleans, granted the administration's request for the court to stay, or temporarily halt, a ruling made last month by a federal judge in El Paso that blocked officials from using the Pentagon funds to fulfill one of President Trump's main campaign pledges.

Due to the vigilance of several Border Patrol agents, three people were rescued after trying to scale the new border wall in San Diego on Sunday evening. The event began at approximately midnight on January 5, when agents on patrol near Otay Mesa saw three people in a precarious situation. A man and two women, under the cover of dense fog, tried to enter the U.S. illegally by climbing San Diego Sector’s new 30-foot, steel bollard wall. The trio became stuck at the top of the wet, slippery wall after smugglers abandoned them. Due to the danger of the situation,...

Mona Zabihian, an Iranian American, attempted to return to Washington state from Canada late Saturday after attending a concert — a trip she said she makes several times a year with no issues. This time was different, Zabihian said, as she and dozens of others were questioned and held for hours. “We went inside, we saw a bunch of other Iranians, pregnant woman, children. I saw one of my friends from Seattle,” she told NBC News. Immigration authorities asked her about her social media accounts and the last time she had been to Iran. “They asked if I was in...

Mexicans seeking asylum in the United States could be sent to Guatemala under a bilateral agreement signed by the Central American nation last year, according to documents sent to U.S. asylum officers in recent days and seen by Reuters. In a Jan. 4 email, field office staff at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) were told Mexican nationals will be included in the populations "amenable" to the agreement with Guatemala. The agreement, brokered last July between the administration of Republican President Donald Trump and the outgoing Guatemalan government, allows U.S. immigration officials to send migrants requesting asylum at the...

U.S. President Donald Trump's administration stepped up deportations of Guatemalans in 2019, doubling the number of migrants sent back from the United States a decade earlier, data from the Central American country showed on Friday. Trump has made cracking down on illegal immigration a major policy focus and has continued to press the issue in the run-up to the November U.S. presidential election. Last year, the United States deported 54,547 people to Guatemala on 486 flights, the highest since at least 2007, according to data from the Guatemalan Institute of Migration. In 2009, the year Trump's Democratic predecessor Barack Obama...

The U.S. government on Thursday began sending asylum-seekers back to Nogales, Mexico, to await court hearings that will be scheduled roughly 350 miles (563 kilometers) away in Juarez, Mexico. Authorities are expanding a program known as Remain in Mexico that requires tens of thousands of asylum seekers to wait out their immigration court hearings in Mexico. Until this week, the government was driving some asylum seekers from Nogales, Arizona, to El Paso, Texas, so they could be returned to Juarez. Now, asylum-seekers will have to find their own way through dangerous Mexican border roads. About 30 asylum seekers were sent...

The Trump administration has expanded an experimental program designed to expedite the processing and deportation of asylum-seekers from all over the world, implementing the new policy in the busiest sector of the U.S.-Mexico border. The program, dubbed Prompt Asylum Claim Review, or PACR, expanded earlier in December to Texas' Rio Grande Valley, a highly transited and patrolled area. Hundreds of asylum-seekers have been subject to the policy since it debuted as a pilot program in the El Paso sector in October. A Customs and Border Protection (CBP) spokesman confirmed the expansion Tuesday, saying the policy is no longer in the...

The Department of Homeland Security is opening makeshift immigration tent courts erected along the U.S.-Mexico border to the public, following months of criticism over a lack of transparency. The department established two such border courts—rows of shipping containers beneath large wedding-style tents—at ports of entry in Brownsville and Laredo, Texas, late this summer. Unlike regular immigration courts and most others across the country, journalists, advocates and other members of the public weren’t permitted to enter. The new acting secretary of the department, Chad Wolf, asked staff after assuming his position in November whether it was feasible to open the courts...

A Texas woman was arrested by Mexican authorities while trying to bring Christmas gifts to kids in border camps, her family says. Anamichelle Castellano was detained Monday with another woman as they attempted to cross the US southern border from Brownsville, Texas, into Matamoros, Mexico, news station KTRK-TV reported. The women reportedly had more than 300 gifts they were planning to give to children with pending asylum cases. “I mean, this is Santa Claus coming in to give toys to the unwanted, and you’re doing what? You’re doing what? You’re threatening her for what?” Castellano’s father, Genaro Lopez, told the...

Congress is using billions of taxpayer dollars to build border walls in other countries. One America's Pearson Sharp explains how Americans are financing border security projects across the Middle East.

The U.S. government on Thursday began sending Mexican deportees to the interior of Mexico starting with a flight to the city of Guadalajara, U.S. and Mexican officials said, in the latest step by both nations to restrict migration flows. The officials declined to be identified because they were not authorized to talk to the media. Central American migrants and asylum-seekers have comprised a large percentage of deportees. Mexicans sent back to their country have usually been returned to U.S.-Mexico border crossings. U.S. President Donald Trump has made clamping down on unlawful migration a top priority of his three-year-old term in...

<p>EL PASO, Texas -- A Border Patrol K9 agent was shot and killed while trying to detain a suspect.</p> <p>Bulder, a 5-year-old Belgian Malinois, was shot to death by the 62-year-old suspect while executing a search warrant on Tuesday. During the incident, agents shot back and killed the suspect.</p>