Free Republic

Honduras announced plans to move its diplomatic mission in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, opening a new embassy in the Israeli capital city. President Juan Orlando Hernandez made the announcement Sunday, during the 2019 American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference in Washington DC. Speaking at the opening meeting of the conference, Hernandez said his country would “immediately” open an “official diplomatic mission” in the Israeli capital city. "Honduras will immediately open our official diplomatic mission and this will extend our embassy to the capital of Israel, Jerusalem." The Hernandez government had previously floated the possibility of moving the Honduran...

Immigration officials are unsure exactly when Carlos Juarez-Sanchez, a native of Honduras, first illegally crossed the border into the U.S. But, they know he was deported in 2008. And again in 2013. And again in 2014. Juarez-Sanchez, who had a history of arrests for multiple criminal charges dating back to 2003, repeatedly re-entered the U.S. each time he was deported, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said. Last July, ICE officials said they tracked him down to Perth Amboy. While officers attempted to arrest him, Juarez-Sanchez ran, hid under a front porch and led ICE agents on a chase through a...

...In 2010, Lt. Col. (retired) Oliver North visited the ranch where Ashurst lives. He was working on documentaries called “War Stories.” He was accompanied by Chuck Holton, a freelance war correspondent and former U.S. Army Ranger who has worked with North on his films and books. When the caravans of illegal immigrants began forming last year in southern Mexico, Holton was sent there to report on them. Ashurst shared some of the information he received from Holton. The migrants are not being paid to join the caravans, but they are being supported and encouraged to join by opposition political elements...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate opponents of President Donald Trump's declaration of a national emergency at the Mexican border moved within a hair Thursday of having enough votes to prevail, and one Republican suggested he risks a rebuff by the GOP-led chamber if he doesn't change course. Trump's move would "turn a border crisis into a constitutional crisis," veteran Sen. Lamar Alexander said on the Senate floor. But he stopped just short of saying he'd support a resolution blocking the president's move. Had Alexander pledged his vote, it would probably be enough for the Senate to pass a measure repealing the...

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. —The first time Jeny Amador fled Honduras for the United States, she tried to enter the country legally: She presented herself at an El Paso border checkpoint in early 2018 and asked for asylum. Amador instead was separated from her 10-year-old son. Authorities accused her of being a smuggler. She was detained for months until she agreed to be deported — without her boy, who went to live with relatives here in the Midwest. (snip) ...When Amador tried to enter the country again in February, she found a shocking about-face. She was turned away from the same checkpoint...

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...

The ranks of a new Central American migrant caravan reportedly grew in size to more than 12,000 as of Friday. The caravan is now heading to Mexico’s southern border. Mexican immigration officials in the city of Ciudad Hidalgo, which borders Guatemala, are establishing procedures to expedite the process in which to approve one-year humanitarian visas for members of the Central American migrant caravan who are arriving daily. The one-year humanitarian visas, promised by Mexico’s new President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, is a newly adopted policy which allows migrants to legally travel and work during their stay in Mexico. The new...

Five weeks after a Central American caravan arrived in Tijuana last November, a majority of those stranded in the city were male, young, Honduran — and still hoping to cross to the United States, according to a newly released survey from the International Organization for Migration. The report found that 68 percent of respondents “continue to contemplate and search for the most suitable way, from their perspectives, to enter the United States.” Another 22 percent “prefer to seek employment in Mexico,” it stated. Only a small proportion, four percent, were considering the possibility of seeking asylum...{snip} But the questionnaire also...

Pope Francis said on Friday it was “senseless and irresponsible” to stigmatize migrants and see all of them as threats to society, weighing in again on one of the most divisive issues in the United States. Francis, who has made migration a key theme of his trip to Panama, spoke to several hundred thousand young people at a religious service on the waterfront of the country’s capital, one of the key events of the Roman Catholic Church’s World Youth Day. “We want to be a church that fosters a culture that welcomes, protects, promotes and integrates; that does not stigmatize,...

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...

President Trump should reopen the federal government for three weeks before declaring a national emergency, according to Sen. Lindsey Graham. "Before he pulls the plug on the legislative option, and I think we're almost there, I would urge him to open up the government for a short period of time, like three weeks, before he pulls the plug, see if we can get a deal," the South Carolina Republican said during an interview with "Fox News Sunday." "If we can't at the end of three weeks, all bets are off, see if you can do it by himself through the...

The country would face an economic hellscape if the government shutdown lasts "months or even years," as the president has suggested it might, experts tell NBC News. The doomsday scenario might be unlikely — the longest the federal government has ever shut down is 21 days, a record that will fall if the current closure lasts until Saturday — but it is chilling. "We'll be in no man's land," Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, told NBC News. If the worst were to happen, experts say the devastating impact would be widespread: 38 million low-income Americans lose food stamps...

As the partial government shutdown enters its fourth week and Democrats continue refusing to provide POTUS Donald Trump with a paltry $5.7 billion in funding for his long-promised border wall, another migrant caravan is forming in Honduras. As reported by The Keene Sentinel, the plan is for migrants to set out next week “on a journey that will once again test the immigration policies of Mexico and the United States.” Like last year, word of the new caravan is being spread via social media, the local report noted. “We’re looking for refuge. In Honduras, we are being killed,” a flier...

A wide-reaching poll conducted by Harvard University reveals that majorities of U.S. voters — including Democrats — appear to agree with many of President Trump's most basic beliefs about immigration. The findings reveal, for example, that eight out of 10 of all U.S. voters — 79 percent — say the U.S. needs secure borders; 93 percent of Republicans, 80 percent of independents and 68 percent of Democrats agree with that. Another 79 percent of voters overall say immigration priorities should be granted on a person’s “ability to contribute to America”; 87 percent of Republicans, 79 percent of independents and 72...

'If it's good enough for the Pope...' Now Trump insists his border wall can NOT be 'immoral because the Vatican's 40ft-high walls are 'the biggest of them all' Trump said the Vatican 'has the biggest wall of them all' as he demanded funding Vatican City has walls around it but allows visitors freely into St Peter's Square The President has also pointed to defenses at the Obamas' home to justify a wall Donald Trump has said his proposed border wall cannot be 'immoral' because the Vatican City has its own 40ft defenses. Speaking at the White House after meeting congressional...