All posts tagged "Migrants"

Five-year-old Luz spent 72 days separated from her father, Julio Rodriguez, after they were detained at the U.S.-Mexico border in 2018.

Escaping extortion and violence in Guatemala, Julio was detained in Texas while Luz was sent to a shelter in New York. Eventually, they reunited in Atlanta and joined family in Massachusetts.

Melanie Hernandez left Guatemala in the middle of the night in 2019 with her 14-year-old son, Lucas, fleeing an abusive husband. She left behind an adult daughter and five-year-old son with severe heart disease. Melanie spent several days away from Lucas when detainees were separated by gender at the U.S. border....

Top Trump aide Stephen Miller is using a "completely made-up figure" to convince Americans and undocumented immigrants alike that self-deportation is the way to go, according to an official with the nonprofit American Immigration Council.

"Miller recently claimed that 1 million people have self-deported already," Aaron Reichlin-Melnick told Slate, adding, "That’s a completely made-up figure. But the goal is to send the message that everybody’s doing it, they’re all leaving: 'If you leave now, then you won’t have to worry about this happening to you. You won’t have to worry about being thrown on the ground by Border Patrol, shoved into a detention center, and treated poorly, if you just go home now.'"

To accomplish his main goal of getting migrants to self-deport, Miller has struck fear in the hearts of those seeking work and a better life in America, not just the criminal element, Reichlin-Melnick said....

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) reportedly left county officials in the dark when he decided to create the 'Alligator Alcatraz' migrant detention facility in Southwest Florida, according to The Associated Press.

President Donald Trump toured the makeshift detention center comprised largely of FEMA tents and trailers earlier this month, claiming it would "house some of the menacing migrants, some of the most vicious people on the planet.”

AP obtained more than 100 emails revealing that "local officials were blindsided by the plans" for Collier County, "a wealthy, majority-Republican corner of the state that’s home to white-sand beaches and the western stretch of the Everglades."...

Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-CA) called the massive show of force at Los Angeles's MacArthur Park on Monday "appalling" after ICE agents and National Guard troops arrived with horses and armored vehicles, with a black Department of Homeland Security helicopter hovering overhead, in what he called a "media stunt" meant to scare the migrant community.

Gomez told CNN on Tuesday that to his knowledge, no one was taken into custody during the government action.

"I've heard that no one was actually detained, which makes us believe that this was more of a political and media stunt where they wanted to, I don't know, capture footage of a show of force by having more than 100 federal agents in full gear...in military equipment, horseback, trucks — a show of force for what? Twenty-plus kids that were playing at a playground during summer camp, some young as as eight years old," Gomez said....

CNN's Brianna Keilar pushed back hard Tuesday on a former Trump official's claim that President Donald Trump had to make a new "policy call" by allowing some undocumented migrants a "temporary pass" to remain in the United States to fill certain jobs.

Keilar asked Chad Wolf, Acting Homeland Security secretary during the first Trump administration, "Is that just an admission that the American economy relies on labor from undocumented immigrants, and that they need work visas even if they're here illegally? Even if you are putting them in the same category as criminals who are here illegally?"

Wolf said the president had to weigh "all these different considerations" to keep the workforce at capacity....

Before departing for Florida on Tuesday, President Donald Trump poked fun at migrants who might try to escape the quickly constructed detention facility in the Everglades that's been dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz."

CNN's Isabel Rosales reported from the site, saying it took "a week and one day" for ICE officials to transform an airport in Ochopee, Florida, into a tent city ready to house some 5,000 detainees awaiting deportation.

"This location here in the Everglades is just under 50 miles west of Trump's resort in Miami," Rosales said, adding that Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) claimed, "Not much security is needed thanks to the pythons and gators that are surrounding this facility."...