Free Republic

MATAMOROS, Mexico - Aurora Leticia Cruz has tried to keep up with her blood pressure medication since fleeing Guatemala more than a year ago, but the limbo she finds herself in - stuck in a sprawling camp at the Texas border after traversing Mexico - has made that hard. When Cruz felt woozy on a recent day as her blood pressure skyrocketed, it could have ended in tragedy, leaving her 17-year-old granddaughter and two great-grandchildren under 3 alone in the camp in Matamoros. But instead, a nurse practitioner from Oregon and a Cuban doctor, who like Cruz is awaiting U.S....

FORT HUACHUCA, Ariz. — One of the most experienced interrogators in the Defense Department looked straight into Ahmed's eyes and asked him for the third time: "Ahmed, what insurgent organization do you belong to?" Sitting in the room with no windows, Ahmed refused to answer the interrogator's questions. He was stoic — similar to many al Qaeda insurgents the interrogator had questioned at the detention center at the U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But, this time, things were different. Ahmed, who uses an alias, was practicing as an advanced interrogation student at Fort Huachuca, the nation's largest intelligence-training facility...

BP agents said they were seeking warrant for raid, humanitarian workers sayJust before Christmas Eve, Border Patrol agents on horseback surrounded No More Death's humanitarian aid station south of Tucson and told volunteers they were pursuing a warrant to raid the camp, the group said.If agents do conduct a raid, it would be the third incursion into the camp near Arivaca, Ariz., in five months, coming near the end of a spike in the number of remains found in southwestern Arizona—a likely sign that a larger number of people are attempting to cross illegally, and are dying in remote stretches...

WASHINGTON - Federal immigration officials deported about 14,500 migrant family members in fiscal year 2020, returning more parents and children in a single year than they did during the first three years of President Donald Trump's term combined, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's annual report released Wednesday. A top federal official said the deportations rose because El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala agreed to more quickly help with the repatriation of their citizens in the past fiscal year, which ran from October 2019 through September 2020. Officials had deported a total of more than 10,700 parents and children -...

President Trump issued full pardons to two former Border Patrol agents on Tuesday. A federal prosecutor filed charges in 2007 against the two agents for the shooting of a drug smuggler. President Trump issued a full pardon to former U.S. Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean. “These former Border Patrol Agents have been supported by one hundred members of Congress, including Rep. Louie Gohmert, Rep. Steve King, Rep. Ted Poe, Rep. Paul Gosar, Rep. Brian Babin, as well as the U.S. Border Control Foundation and the Conservative Legal Defense and Education Fund,” the White House said. The White...

President-elect Joe Biden on Tuesday said he would slowly reform US immigration policies to avoid triggering a rush of “2 million people on our border.” Biden confirmed reports that his team is nervous amid an already increasing number of immigrants, including children and families, being detained at the border since his election victory last month. “I’ve already started discussing these issues with the president of Mexico and our friends in Latin America and the timeline is to do it so that we in fact make it better, not worse,” Biden said at a press conference in Wilmington, Del, when asked...

Congress will approve $1.375 billion for a wall along the southern border as part of the $1.4 trillion omnibus spending bill for the next fiscal year, according to GOP sources. Congress is expected to pass the measure on Monday along with a $900 billion COVID-19 relief bill. The White House signaled Sunday evening that President Trump would sign it... Budget law requires the government to spend appropriated funds, but it is unclear whether President-elect Joe Biden will seek a way to circumvent the law or whether Congress would take action to enforce the law. The funding for the wall in...

GUADALUPE CANYON, Ariz. - Work crews ignite dynamite blasts in the remote and rugged southeast corner of Arizona, forever reshaping the landscape as they pulverize mountaintops in a rush to build more of President Donald Trump’s border wall before his term ends next month. Each blast in Guadalupe Canyon releases puffs of dust as workers level land to make way for 30-foot-tall (9-meter-tall) steel columns near the New Mexico line. Heavy machines crawl over roads gouged into rocky slopes while one tap-tap-taps open holes for posts on U.S. Bureau of Land Management property. Trump has expedited border wall construction in...

Until now, testing, treatment and isolation have been our only tools to help limit the spread of Covid-19 - but vaccination is the means to finally bring it under control. That's because, when a vaccine is used by a majority of people, it may lead to herd immunity for all members of society, protecting even those for whom a vaccine is ineffective or medically contraindicated. But if a significant number of people who would otherwise be healthy enough to receive a vaccination don't get one, the risk of a continuing pandemic goes up dramatically for everyone - especially when the...

HOUSTON - A federal court on Tuesday will consider whether to invalidate a program that shields from deportation immigrants brought to the United States as children, potentially creating complications for the incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden. The challenge to be heard in Houston concerns President Barack Obama’s original memorandum creating Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which currently covers about 650,000 people. Federal courts have already turned away President Donald Trump’s efforts to end DACA. Under the order of a judge in New York, the Trump administration in December restored the program to its original terms under Obama, accepting new...

LOS ANGELES/MONTERREY, Mexico - After spending eight months of 2019 in a makeshift tent camp in the dangerous Mexican border city of Matamoros, Israel Martinez abandoned his hopes of seeking asylum in the United States. Beaten down by the cold and unsanitary conditions in the encampment, Martinez accepted a free flight back to his homeland of Honduras in January 2020. Last month, his house was severely damaged by flooding during back-to-back hurricanes. And in January, U.S. President-elect Joe Biden, who has promised to relax some immigration restrictions at the U.S.-Mexico border, takes power. Those factors have prompted Martinez and others...

A Bloomberg News report indicates that multiple migrant caravans are forming in Central America and are heading for the border in the coming weeks. The caravans represent an “early test” for President-elect Joe Biden and his promised efforts to abolish President Trump’s substantial immigration reforms, according to Bloomberg. The report cites Jose Luis Gonzalez, coordinator of the Guatemala Red Jesuita con Migrantes, who advises “there are going to be caravans, and in the coming weeks it will increase.” Gonzalez notes that it is Biden’s promises to reverse Trump’s anti-illegal immigration policies that are, in part, motivating the caravans to make...

The Trump administration is moving to broadly raise the standards for individuals to receive asylum status in the U.S., a step that critics are calling the biggest crackdown of this presidency on those seeking a haven in this country. A new, 419-page rule by the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice would create additional bars to asylum eligibility and limit the circumstances in which individuals can qualify for protection, changes that the administration says "are likely to result in fewer asylum grants annually." "This is the most sweeping attack on asylum that we have seen under the Trump...

Hundreds of Hondurans trying to start a new caravan to reach the U.S. border were stopped by Honduran security personnel Thursday before they even reached the border with neighboring Guatemala. The Honduran police and immigration agents asked their countrymen to show travel documents and proof of negative coronavirus tests, which none appeared to have... The roughly 600 men, women and children had gathered Wednesday night in the northern city of San Pedro Sula and began walking along a dark highway toward the border with Guatemala. But as they approached the border crossing at Agua Caliente, the Honduran agents said they...

<p>HOUSTON - A federal appeals court ruled Friday that a lower court was wrong to bar the Trump administration from taking $3.6 billion from military construction projects for a border wall.</p><p>A panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that El Paso County and the nonprofit Border Network for Human Rights did not have the standing to challenge President Donald Trump’s redirecting funds from more than 100 military construction projects, including a $20 million road project at a base located in the city. The appeals court found that neither the county nor the Border Network proved it was directly harmed by Trump’s move. The court reversed a December 2019 ruling by U.S. District Judge David Briones.</p>

Thanks to congressional funding rules, the construction of President Trump’s border wall will continue into next year, no matter what the final outcome of the Electoral College election is.

One of President Donald Trump's earliest and most controversial moves was a travel ban on people from certain nations he said were deemed a security threat to the US. Joe Biden has promised this will be one of the first policies he reverses. The ban - which now applies to 13 countries - has survived many legal challenges, but for some families it has meant years of separation. Afkab Hussein is a Somalian lorry driver who has never lived with his sons. When he first moved to Ohio in 2015, Afkab Hussein planned for his pregnant wife to join him...

415 miles completed, 236 miles under construction, 87 miles under pre-construction (738 Total).

Mexico City (AFP) - Mauricio Lopez was deported to Mexico after spending most of his life in the United States. Now he hopes against the odds that Joe Biden's administration will let him return. The 26-year-old English teacher is one of thousands of migrants known as "dreamers" who as children were taken to the US by their parents. Like many Mexicans who were expelled, in particular under outgoing President Donald Trump, Lopez is hoping that President-elect Biden will push for changes that protect undocumented migrants. "It would be good for us if he relaxes immigration laws ... if there are...

LAREDO, Texas – U.S. Border Patrol agents assigned to the checkpoint on U.S. Highway 83 discovered a human smuggling attempt in which people were being concealed in furniture and appliances north of Laredo. The incident occurred on the evening of November 19, when a Suburban towing a utility trailer loaded with furniture and appliances approached the checkpoint. The vehicle was referred to secondary inspection following an alert from a service canine. Upon examining the items on the trailer, agents discovered 13 individuals hidden among the varied furniture items, mattresses, and home appliances. They were immediately medically screened. None were wearing...