Free Republic

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...

Sky News in Australia is reporting that there was a major leak of list of nearly 2 million CCP members, something never seen before. Sky News in Australia reports: Advertisement - story continues below A major leak containing a register with the details of nearly two million CCP members has occurred – exposing members who are now working all over the world, while also lifting the lid on how the party operates under Xi Jinping, says Sharri Markson. Ms Markson said the leak is a register with the details of Communist Party members, including their names, party position, birthday, national...

It didn’t take very long for a migrant caravan to form in Honduras and begin their journey to the United States in anticipation of Joe Biden taking office. More than 1,000 Hondurans departed a bus terminal Wednesday night headed to Guatemala. If they make it into Guatemala the caravan will continue on until it reaches the U.S. border. This caravan is populated with Hondurans who are leaving due to the devastation caused by two back-to-back hurricanes. The people are looking to Joe Biden to allow them to stay in America, if they make it to the border. “We have asked...

Since Election Day, the Department of Homeland Security has been preparing for an onslaught of Central American migrants who are being driven by cartel organizations to try to enter the U.S. Southwest border, according to a South Texas congressman. U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, told Border Report on Friday afternoon that he was briefed by DHS a couple weeks ago “that the bad guys are starting to promote to people of Central America and Mexico that ‘the border will be open; it will be different so start getting ready to come.'”... Cuellar said drug cartels are “promoting and staging” migrants...

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...

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...

SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras (Reuters) - Central American authorities on Thursday began trying to break up a caravan of hundreds of Hondurans who set off for the United States to escape the impact of back-to-back hurricanes, testing efforts to stem immigration from the battered region.... ...Guatemala’s migration authorities warned the travelers they would need negative coronavirus tests and passports to enter the country....

<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>

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...

How do armed, nonstate actors such as criminal organizations affect economic growth? Nikita Melnikov, Carlos Schmidt-Padilla, and Maria Micaela Sviatschi explore this question in Gangs, Labor Mobility, and Development (NBER Working Paper 27832), a study of how two of the world’s largest gangs, MS-13 (also known as Mara Salvatrucha) and 18th Street (also known as Barrio 18) affect socioeconomic development in El Salvador. The researchers study a natural experiment that occurred in the 1990s. Before 1997, El Salvador did not have any powerful gangs. In that year, the United States began implementing an immigration policy that made it easier to...

ELK CITY, Okla. - The Elk City Police Department is investigating a deadly home invasion. Police said the victim told investigators two men broke into his bedroom. That's when investigators said the homeowner then opened fire on both, killing one of the would-be thieves. “I saw five or six police cars, they had all alleys blocked off,” said Tristian Wooten, Elk City resident. “Cones had the area shut off.” People living nearby said they woke up and noticed police all over their neighborhood Saturday morning. “They blocked off all in front of the tennis courts there to the south and...

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...

Joe Biden’s plan to surge refugee resettlement by over 700 percent to the United States is “what America needs to heal” after four years of President Trump, an MSNBC columnist writes. In “Biden’s refugee plan is what America needs to heal from Trump,” MSNBC columnist Hayes Brown writes Americans “need to make space” for a surge in refugees Biden has promised to bring to the U.S. "Massively increasing the number of refugees allowed into the U.S. has the benefit, then, of doing exactly that — marking an end to the U.S. government’s hostility to immigrants under Trump and showing the...

Former Vice President Joe Biden has vowed to increase the United States annual intake of refugees by over 800 percent of current figures. After the Trump administration established a ceiling of 15,000 refugees, Biden has now promised to raise that number to 125,000, Religion News Service (RNS) reported.

After Mr. Biden is sworn-in in January, his administration will move to fully restore an Obama-era program that shields 640,000 undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children from deportation, halting Mr. Trump's unsuccessful efforts to end it, people familiar with the plans told CBS News. The incoming administration also intends to rescind Mr. Trump's travel and immigration restrictions on 13 mostly African or predominantly Muslim countries. Mr. Biden will look to implement a 100-day freeze on deportations while his administration issues guidance narrowing who can be arrested by immigration agents. Obama-era memos that prioritized the deportation of...

Syrian refugees stuck between the Jordanian and Syrian borders wait to cross into Jordan in this undated photo Presumptive president-elect Joe Biden told a Jesuit charity group that when he's in office, he'll raise the refugee resettlement cap to 125,000 people, reversing a trend among the Trump administration.Biden spoke of his plans to raise the refugee resettlement ceiling to the highest numbers ever in a video message to the Jesuit Refugee Service on Wednesday in honor of the organization's 40th anniversary.During his remarks to the JRS, Biden said he believed “every society is ultimately judged by how we treat those...

Hurricane Eta struck the coast on Nicaragua and Honduras as a Category 4 hurricane leaving hundreds of thousands of people homeless. That comes on top of an economic recession due to the pandemic. Now experts fear they feel obliged to leave the country. SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras - Twenty-year-old Andry Pacheco has never had it easy, but he never thought of leaving his country. But now, after losing everything he owns due to flooding caused by Hurricane Eta, he finds himself homeless and often without food, he’s considering migrating for the first time... Eta is the worst natural disaster to...

Ryan James Girdusky @RyanGirdusky This will undoubtably cause a rush on the border during a global pandemic and he’s going to handcuff ICE and border controls enforcement abilities. He’s setting up for a crisis in his first 3 months in office. Quote Tweet Camilo Montoya-Galvez @camiloreports · Nov 11 NEW — President-elect Biden is set to start reversing Pres. Trump's immigration legacy. The Biden team is planning to fully restore DACA, enact a 100-day freeze on deportations, limit ICE arrests, overturn green card restrictions and much more. @CBSNews. https://cbsnews.com/news/biden-immigration-policy-agenda-trump-reversal-deportation-asylum/… Show this thread 5:39 AM · Nov 12, 2020·Twitter for iPhone