US officials designate the arrival of unaccompanied children at the border a security problem–and scramble to shift blame from Washington's own failed "drug war."
Tamaulipas state police resuced 73 abducted migrants outside Reynosa after following their apparent captors to a house and hearing frantic calls for help.
Thousands of migrants continue to be killed or kidnapped each year as they try to cross Mexico to the US; activists say Mexican officials are involved in some of the crimes.
A new study correlating arms sales with dealers’ locations estimates that about a quarter of a million firearms purchased in the US are smuggled into Mexico each year.
After four months neither the US or the Mexican government has much to say about the death of an unarmed Mexican minor gunned down in Mexico by US agents.
Friendly fire caused the death of a Border Patrol agent near the Arizona-Mexico border, the FBI now says—ending days of speculation that Mexican smugglers shot the agent.
A 16-state coalition filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, requesting the court to issue a judicial determination that Trump's national emergency declaration over the southern border wall is unconstitutional. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra announced the lawsuit, stating: "Unlawful southern border entries are at their lowest point in 20 years, immigrants are less likely than native-born citizens to commit crimes, and illegal drugs are more likely to come through official ports of entry. There is no credible evidence to suggest that a border wall would decrease crime rates." (Photo via Jurist)
Human Rights Watch condemned US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for force-feeding detained migrants. Detained men at the agency's El Paso Processing Center have been participating in a hunger strike since early January. ICE officials said that 11 men are striking, but AP reports the number may be closer to 30. In mid-January a federal judge authorized ICE to force-feed six of the protesters. The detained men have been protesting "rampant verbal abuse and threats of deportation from guards" and long detentions while awaiting a hearing. Most of the hunger strikers are from India or Cuba. (Photo: Hetsumani/Pixabay)
UN Special Rapporteur of the human rights of migrants Felipe González Morales called for an independent investigation into the death of Jakelin Ameí Caal, a Guatemalan migrant child who died while in US Customs and Border Protection. Jakelin was in custody, along with her family and other migrants, after crossing the Mexico border. The factual causes leading up to her death are currently disputed. In the report, Morales stresses the importance of finding out what happened to Jakelin, stating that "if any officials are found responsible they should be held accountable." (Photo via Jurist)
The White House issued a proclamation that bans migrants caught entering the US unlawfully from seeking asylum. The ban's stated purpose is to funnel migrants from Mexico and Central America to ports of entry, where they will be allowed to apply for asylum "in an orderly and controlled manner instead of unlawfully." But Omar Jadwat, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrant Rights Project, stated: "The law is clear: People can apply for asylum whether or not they’re at a port of entry, and regardless of their immigration status. The president doesn't get to ignore that law, even if he dislikes it." (Photo via Jurist)
In Episode 13 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg deconstructs Trump's executive order ostensibly ending the policy of family separation on the southern border, and demonstrates how it actually lays the groundwork for indefinite detention of migrants on military bases. The Central American peasantry, expropriated of its lands by state terror, CAFTA and narco-violence, is forced to flee north—now into the arms of Trump's new gulag. Immigrants are the proverbial canaries in the American coal-mine. The Trump crew are testing their methods on them because they are vulnerable, and banking on the likelihood that non-immigrants will say "not my problem." But if they get away with what they are doing now to a vulnerable and isolated population of non-citizens, it sets a precedent—and ultimately nobody is safe. Listen on SoundCloud, and support our podcast via Patreon.
In what the New York Times somewhat hyperbolically calls a "clash," US Border Patrol vessels have over the past two weeks stopped at least 10 Canadian fishing boats in the Bay of Fundy between Maine and New Brunswick. Canada has responded by beefing up its Coast Guard patrols in what is being termed a "disputed gray zone" between the two countries' territories. The maritime dispute dates back to the 1783 Treaty of Paris that ended the American Revolution, and is one of several between the US and Canada—including fishing waters at Dixon Entrance between Alaska and British Columbia, and areas of the petroleum-rich Beaufort Sea, near the Arctic Ocean. (Map: ResearchGate)
