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Tag: Border security

  • Pakistani security forces kill 6 militants in separate raids near the border with Afghanistan

    Pakistani security forces kill 6 militants in separate raids near the border with Afghanistan

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    Pakistan’s military says security forces have raided two militant hideouts in regions near the border with Afghanistan

    PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Pakistan’s military says security forces have raided two militant hideouts in regions near the border with Afghanistan, triggering intense shootouts that left six insurgents dead during the Eid holidays.

    A military statement said the two raids were conducted early Friday in Tank and North Waziristan districts on credible intelligence information about intrusion and hiding of militants in the areas near the border with Afghanistan.

    Security forces also seized weapons and ammunition from the hideout and were carrying out a clearance operation of the area, the military said late Friday.

    The military gave no further details about the identity or affiliation of the six dead, but largely militants belong to factions of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, which is generally known as Pakistani Taliban.

    TTP is a separate group but allied with the Afghan Taliban, who seized power in the neighboring country in August 2021 as U.S. and NATO troops were in the final stages of their pullout. The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan has emboldened the Pakistani Taliban, which has stepped up attacks on police and troops in recent months.

    Footprints of the Islamic State group are also found in the region. Earlier in the week, security force killed an IS commander identified as Shafi Ullah in an intelligence-based operation in the Bajur district, another area in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan. He was among thee militants killed on Wednesday.

    Pakistan’s military has carried out major operations in recent years in the tribal belt along the Afghan border, which served as a safe haven for local and foreign militants for decades. However, militants still carry out attacks in the region.

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  • FBI and Homeland Security ignored ‘massive amount’ of intelligence before Jan. 6, Senate report says

    FBI and Homeland Security ignored ‘massive amount’ of intelligence before Jan. 6, Senate report says

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security downplayed or ignored “a massive amount of intelligence information” ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S Capitol, according to the chairman of a Senate panel that on Tuesday is releasing a new report on the intelligence failures ahead of the insurrection.

    The report details how the agencies failed to recognize and warn of the potential for violence as some of then-President Donald Trump’s supporters openly planned the siege in messages and forums online.

    Among the multitude of intelligence that was overlooked was a December 2020 tip to the FBI that members of the far-right extremist group Proud Boys planned to be in Washington, D.C., for the certification of Joe Biden’s victory and their “plan is to literally kill people,” the report said. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee said the agencies were also aware of many social media posts that foreshadowed violence, some calling on Trump’s supporters to “come armed” and storm the Capitol, kill lawmakers or “burn the place to the ground.”

    The special counsel who investigated the FBI’s probe of ties between Russia and Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign found himself at the center of a heated political fight as he appeared before a congressional committee.

    Jeff Woodke, and his wife, Els, pose for a photo at their home in McKinleyville, Calif., Monday, June 5, 2023. American missionary Jeff Woodke was taken by Islamic extremists in Niger and held in captivity for six-and-a-half years. Woodke and his wife, Els, recently spoke to The Associated Press in their first joint interview, sharing previously unreported details about his captivity and their frustrating interactions with the U.S government. (AP Photo/Shaun Walker)

    An American missionary who spent six years in captivity in Africa says he was beaten, locked in chains and pressured repeatedly to convert to Islam.

    Matt Olsen, Assistant Attorney General of the National Security Division of the Department of Justice, right, testifies with, from far left, Chris Fonzone, General Counsel at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, George Barnes, Deputy Director of the National Security Agency (NSA), David Cohen, Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and Paul Abbate, Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), during a Senate Judiciary Oversight Committee hearing to examine Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and related surveillance authorities, Tuesday, June 13, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

    The Biden administration is releasing what it says are newly declassified examples of how U.S. surveillance programs are used.

    FILE - Part of a Nov. 6, 2016, letter from FBI Director James Comey to Congress is photographed in Washington on Nov. 6, 2016. Comey told Congress that a review of new Hillary Clinton emails has "not changed our conclusions" from earlier this year that she should not face charges. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick, File)

    As Donald Trump readies for a momentous court appearance Tuesday on charges related to the hoarding of top-secret documents, Republican allies are amplifying, without evidence, claims that he’s the target of a political prosecution.

    Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, the Democratic chairman of the Homeland panel, said the breakdown was “largely a failure of imagination to see threats that the Capitol could be breached as credible,” echoing the findings of the Sept. 11 commission about intelligence failures ahead of the 2001 terrorist attacks.

    The report by the panel’s majority staff says the intelligence community has not entirely recalibrated to focus on the threats of domestic, rather than international, terrorism. And government intelligence leaders failed to sound the alarm “in part because they could not conceive that the U.S. Capitol Building would be overrun by rioters.”

    Still, Peters said, the reasons for dismissing what he called a “massive” amount of intelligence “defies an easy explanation.”

    While several other reports have examined the intelligence failures around Jan. 6 — including a bipartisan 2021 Senate report, the House Jan. 6 committee last year and several separate internal assessments by the Capitol Police and other government agencies — the latest investigation is the first congressional report to focus solely on the actions of the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis.

    In the wake of the attack, Peters said the committee interviewed officials at both agencies and found what was “pretty constant finger pointing” at each other.

    “Everybody should be accountable because everybody failed,” Peters said.

    Using emails and interviews collected by the Senate committee and others, including from the House Jan. 6 panel, the report lays out in detail the intelligence the agencies received in the weeks ahead of the attack.

    There was not a failure to obtain evidence, the report says, but the agencies “failed to fully and accurately assess the severity of the threat identified by that intelligence, and formally disseminate guidance to their law enforcement partners.”

    As Trump, a Republican, falsely claimed he had won the 2020 election and tried to overturn his election defeat, telling his supporters to “ fight like hell ” in a speech in front of the White House that day, thousands of them marched to the Capitol. More than 2,000 rioters overran law enforcement, assaulted police officers, and caused more than $2.7 billion in damage to the Capitol, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office report earlier this year.

    Breaking through windows and doors, the rioters sent lawmakers running for their lives and temporarily interrupted the certification of the election victory by Biden, a Democrat.

    Even as the attack was happening, the new report found, the FBI and Homeland Security downplayed the threat. As the Capitol Police struggled to clear the building, Homeland Security “was still struggling to assess the credibility of threats against the Capitol and to report out its intelligence.”

    And at a 10 a.m. briefing as protesters gathered at Trump’s speech and near the Capitol were “wearing ballistic helmets, body armor, carrying radio equipment and military grade backpacks,” the FBI briefed that there were “no credible threats at this time.”

    The lack of sufficient warnings meant that law enforcement were not adequately prepared and there was not a hardened perimeter established around the Capitol, as there is during events like the annual State of the Union address.

    The report contains dozens of tips about violence on Jan. 6 that the agencies received and dismissed either due to lack of coordination, bureaucratic delays or trepidation on the part of those who were collecting it. The FBI, for example, was unexpectedly hindered in its attempt to find social media posts planning for Jan. 6 protests when the contract for its third-party social media monitoring tool expired. At Homeland Security, analysts were hesitant to report open-source intelligence after criticism in 2020 for collecting intelligence on American citizens during racial justice demonstrations.

    One tip received by the FBI ahead of the Jan. 6 attack was from a former Justice Department official who sent screenshots of online posts from members of the Oath Keepers extremist group: “There is only one way in. It is not signs. It’s not rallies. It’s f—— bullets!”

    The social media company Parler, a favored platform for Trump’s supporters, directly sent the FBI several posts it found alarming, adding that there was “more where this came from” and that they were concerned about what would happen on Jan. 6.

    ”(T)his is not a rally and it’s no longer a protest,” read one of the Parler posts sent to the FBI, according to the report. “This is a final stand where we are drawing the red line at Capitol Hill. (…) don’t be surprised if we take the #capital (sic) building.”

    But even as it received the warnings, the Senate panel found, the agency said over and over again that there were no credible threats.

    “Our nation is still reckoning with the fallout from January 6th, but what is clear is the need for a reevaluation of the federal government’s domestic intelligence collection, analysis, and dissemination processes,” the new report says.

    In a statement, Homeland Security spokesperson Angelo Fernandez said that the department has made many of those changes two and a half years later. The department “has strengthened intelligence analysis, information sharing, and operational preparedness to help prevent acts of violence and keep our communities safe.”

    The FBI said in a separate response that since the attack it has increased focus on “swift information sharing” and centralized the flow of information to ensure more timely notification to other entities. “The FBI is determined to aggressively fight the danger posed by all domestic violent extremists, regardless of their motivations,” the statement said.

    FBI Director Christopher Wray has defended the FBI’s handling of intelligence in the run-up to Jan. 6, including a report from its Norfolk field office on Jan. 5 that cited online posts foreshadowing the possibility of a “war” in Washington the following day. The Senate report noted that the memo “did not note the multitude of other warnings” the agency had received.

    The faultfinding with the FBI and Homeland Security Department echoes the blistering criticism directed at U.S. Capitol Police in a bipartisan report issued by the Senate Homeland and Rules committees two years ago. That report found that the police intelligence unit knew about social media posts calling for violence, as well, but did not inform top leadership what they had found.

    Peters says he asked for the probe of the intelligence agencies after other reports, such as the House panel’s investigation last year, focused on other aspects of the attack. The Jan. 6 panel was more focused on Trump’s actions, and concluded in its report that the former president criminally engaged in a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 presidential election and failed to act to stop his supporters from attacking the Capitol.

    “It’s important for us to realize these failures to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Peters said.

    ___

    Associated Press writers Eric Tucker and Rebecca Santana contributed to this report.

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  • The FBI and Homeland Security had ‘a massive amount’ of warnings about Jan. 6, a Senate report finds

    The FBI and Homeland Security had ‘a massive amount’ of warnings about Jan. 6, a Senate report finds

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    WASHINGTON — The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security downplayed or ignored “a massive amount of intelligence information” ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S Capitol, according to the chairman of a Senate panel that on Tuesday is releasing a new report on the intelligence failures ahead of the insurrection.

    The report details how the agencies failed to recognize and warn of the potential for violence as some of then-President Donald Trump’s supporters openly planned the siege in messages and forums online.

    Among the multitude of intelligence that was overlooked was a December 2020 tip to the FBI that members of the far-right extremist group Proud Boys planned to be in Washington, D.C., for the certification of Joe Biden’s victory and their “plan is to literally kill people,” the report said. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee said the agencies were also aware of many social media posts that foreshadowed violence, some calling on Trump’s supporters to “come armed” and storm the Capitol, kill lawmakers or “burn the place to the ground.”

    Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, the Democratic chairman of the Homeland panel, said the breakdown was “largely a failure of imagination to see threats that the Capitol could be breached as credible,” echoing the findings of the Sept. 11 commission about intelligence failures ahead of the 2001 terrorist attacks.

    The report by the panel’s majority staff says the intelligence community has not entirely recalibrated to focus on the threats of domestic, rather than international, terrorism. And government intelligence leaders failed to sound the alarm “in part because they could not conceive that the U.S. Capitol Building would be overrun by rioters.”

    Still, Peters said, the reasons for dismissing what he called a “massive” amount of intelligence “defies an easy explanation.”

    While several other reports have examined the intelligence failures around Jan. 6 — including a bipartisan 2021 Senate report, the House Jan. 6 committee last year and several separate internal assessments by the Capitol Police and other government agencies — the latest investigation is the first congressional report to focus solely on the actions of the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis.

    In the wake of the attack, Peters said the committee interviewed officials at both agencies and found what was “pretty constant finger pointing” at each other.

    “Everybody should be accountable because everybody failed,” Peters said.

    Using emails and interviews collected by the Senate committee and others, including from the House Jan. 6 panel, the report lays out in detail the intelligence the agencies received in the weeks ahead of the attack.

    There was not a failure to obtain evidence, the report says, but the agencies “failed to fully and accurately assess the severity of the threat identified by that intelligence, and formally disseminate guidance to their law enforcement partners.”

    As Trump, a Republican, falsely claimed he had won the 2020 election and tried to overturn his election defeat, telling his supporters to “ fight like hell ” in a speech in front of the White House that day, thousands of them marched to the Capitol. More than 2,000 rioters overran law enforcement, assaulted police officers, and caused more than $2.7 billion in damage to the Capitol, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office report earlier this year.

    Breaking through windows and doors, the rioters sent lawmakers running for their lives and temporarily interrupted the certification of the election victory by Biden, a Democrat.

    Even as the attack was happening, the new report found, the FBI and Homeland Security downplayed the threat. As the Capitol Police struggled to clear the building, Homeland Security “was still struggling to assess the credibility of threats against the Capitol and to report out its intelligence.”

    And at a 10 a.m. briefing as protesters gathered at Trump’s speech and near the Capitol were “wearing ballistic helmets, body armor, carrying radio equipment and military grade backpacks,” the FBI briefed that there were “no credible threats at this time.”

    The lack of sufficient warnings meant that law enforcement were not adequately prepared and there was not a hardened perimeter established around the Capitol, as there is during events like the annual State of the Union address.

    The report contains dozens of tips about violence on Jan. 6 that the agencies received and dismissed either due to lack of coordination, bureaucratic delays or trepidation on the part of those who were collecting it. The FBI, for example, was unexpectedly hindered in its attempt to find social media posts planning for Jan. 6 protests when the contract for its third-party social media monitoring tool expired. At Homeland Security, analysts were hesitant to report open-source intelligence after criticism in 2020 for collecting intelligence on American citizens during racial justice demonstrations.

    One tip received by the FBI ahead of the Jan. 6 attack was from a former Justice Department official who sent screenshots of online posts from members of the Oath Keepers extremist group: “There is only one way in. It is not signs. It’s not rallies. It’s f—— bullets!”

    The social media company Parler, a favored platform for Trump’s supporters, directly sent the FBI several posts it found alarming, adding that there was “more where this came from” and that they were concerned about what would happen on Jan. 6.

    ”(T)his is not a rally and it’s no longer a protest,” read one of the Parler posts sent to the FBI, according to the report. “This is a final stand where we are drawing the red line at Capitol Hill. (…) don’t be surprised if we take the #capital (sic) building.”

    But even as it received the warnings, the Senate panel found, the agency said over and over again that there were no credible threats.

    “Our nation is still reckoning with the fallout from January 6th, but what is clear is the need for a reevaluation of the federal government’s domestic intelligence collection, analysis, and dissemination processes,” the new report says.

    In a statement, Homeland Security spokesperson Angelo Fernandez said that the department has made many of those changes two and a half years later. The department “has strengthened intelligence analysis, information sharing, and operational preparedness to help prevent acts of violence and keep our communities safe.”

    The FBI said in a separate response that since the attack it has increased focus on “swift information sharing” and centralized the flow of information to ensure more timely notification to other entities. “The FBI is determined to aggressively fight the danger posed by all domestic violent extremists, regardless of their motivations,” the statement said.

    FBI Director Christopher Wray has defended the FBI’s handling of intelligence in the run-up to Jan. 6, including a report from its Norfolk field office on Jan. 5 that cited online posts foreshadowing the possibility of a “war” in Washington the following day. The Senate report noted that the memo “did not note the multitude of other warnings” the agency had received.

    The faultfinding with the FBI and Homeland Security Department echoes the blistering criticism directed at U.S. Capitol Police in a bipartisan report issued by the Senate Homeland and Rules committees two years ago. That report found that the police intelligence unit knew about social media posts calling for violence, as well, but did not inform top leadership what they had found.

    Peters says he asked for the probe of the intelligence agencies after other reports, such as the House panel’s investigation last year, focused on other aspects of the attack. The Jan. 6 panel was more focused on Trump’s actions, and concluded in its report that the former president criminally engaged in a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 presidential election and failed to act to stop his supporters from attacking the Capitol.

    “It’s important for us to realize these failures to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Peters said.

    ___

    Associated Press writers Eric Tucker and Rebecca Santana contributed to this report.

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  • Balloons, tears and hugs as family of girl who died in Border Patrol custody holds New York funeral

    Balloons, tears and hugs as family of girl who died in Border Patrol custody holds New York funeral

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    NEW YORK (AP) — Balloons with rainbows and Minnie Mouse surrounded the casket of an 8-year-old girl who died in Border Patrol custody as dozens of people gathered Friday to remember Anadith Danay Reyes Alvarez in New York City.

    Her family had been heading to the city last month before their journey across the southern U.S. border ended in tragedy. The child’s death has put the U.S. government under new scrutiny over the care given to thousands of detained migrants.

    The girl’s mother, Mabel Alvarez Benedicks, hugged almost every guest at the R.G. Ortiz Funeral Home, thanking them for coming to honor their daughter. She grabbed a handful of tissues to wipe her eyes and nose.

    Anadith had a history of heart problems and sickle cell anemia, her mother has said. An internal investigation found that Border Patrol medical personnel were informed about the girl’s medical history but declined to review the file before she had a seizure and died May 17, her family’s ninth day in custody.

    “We are laying our baby to rest and may she rest in peace,” the Alvarez family said in a statement. “We want justice for her, and we do not want this to ever happen again. We will fight for justice.”

    As the girl’s casket was closed, Benedicks began weeping. Pastor Arnold Ciego led the gathering in a song and commented that the family didn’t leave their countries because they wanted to simply leave, but because they were searching for a cure and medical help for Anadith.

    “When are we going to rest from an unjust system?” Ciego said.

    Pointing to poster boards with photos of Anadith, Rossel Reyes recalled memories of his daughter.

    “Here, we were in Mexico. She was the one who never got off her bike,” he said, choking up. “Here, we were in Honduras on the beach walking. I always held her hand, carried her, always, always. She was always affectionate, kind and caring. And every day I will think of her. Every day.”

    Anadith, who was born in Panama, died in a Border Patrol station in Harlingen, Texas. More than a week earlier, her family of five had surrendered to border agents after crossing the Rio Grande from Mexico.

    Anadith tested positive for influenza while in custody. Her mother told The Associated Press that she had warned agents and staff about Anadith’s medical history. A preliminary report from CBP’s Office of Professional Responsibility found medical staff declined to review the file.

    Late Thursday, CBP announced it had reassigned its chief medical officer, Dr. David Tarantino, after Anadith’s death, saying in a statement it was “bringing in additional senior leadership to drive action across the agency.”

    The family entered the U.S. at a time when daily illegal crossings topped 10,000 as migrants rushed to beat the end of pandemic-related restrictions on seeking asylum that were lifted May 11.

    While the family was being held in Harlingen, the girl experienced stomachaches, nausea, difficulty breathing and a fever that reached 104.9 degrees Fahrenheit (40.5 degrees Celsius) a day before her death, the CBP report said.

    The nurse practitioner also reported denying three or four requests from the girl’s mother for an ambulance until the girl collapsed in her mother’s arms and lost consciousness.

    “Despite the girl’s condition, her mother’s concerns, and the series of treatments required to manage her condition, contracted medical personnel did not transfer her to a hospital for higher-level care,” the Office of Professional Responsibility said.

    Dr. Paul H. Wise, a Stanford University pediatrics professor who visited South Texas to look into the circumstances around what he said was a “preventable” death, said there should be little hesitation about sending ill children to the hospital, especially those with chronic conditions.

    Attorneys with the Texas Civil Rights Project and the Haitian Bridge Alliance, a nongovernmental organization working with the family, have requested an independent autopsy to determine the cause of the girl’s death.

    “When I heard of Anadith’s death, my heart broke in a million different pieces,” Guerline Jozef, founder of immigration advocacy nonprofit Haitian Bridge Alliance, said during the wake, which ended with a group of artists performing a song with maracas and drums.

    The family said Anadith will be buried Saturday at a cemetery in New Jersey.

    ___

    Gonzalez reported from McAllen, Texas.

    ___

    This story has been updated to correct the girl’s name to Anadith Danay, not Anadith Tanay.

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  • Kosovo tightens border security after saying 3 police officers ‘kidnapped’ by Serbian forces

    Kosovo tightens border security after saying 3 police officers ‘kidnapped’ by Serbian forces

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    PRISTINA, Kosovo — Kosovo’s prime minister on Thursday said border security would be tightened following what he described as Serbia’s role in the “kidnapping of three police officers.”

    Prime Minister Albin Kurti also criticized NATO-led international peacekeepers for not providing an official explanation of what happened to the three border police officers. Kurti says they were “kidnapped inside Kosovo’s territory” while Belgrade says they were “arrested” in Serbian territory.

    Kurti, speaking at a news conference, showed maps of where the incident allegedly occurred, saying that Serbia’s special police and army units had entered deep into Kosovo territory.

    After a meeting of Kosovo’s top security council, the prime minister said border checks would increase and traffic from Serbia would be limited, but he added they were not “commercial steps,” suggesting goods would continue to move freely across the border.

    “What surprises us is the silence and tolerance of international bodies to Serbia’s actions. Serbia continuously looks for pretexts to escalate and destabilize, and when there is no pretext it is ready and able to create one,” Kurti said.

    In an interview with The Associated Press last week, Kurti complained of bias against his country from the United States and the European Union and tolerance of what he called Serbia’s authoritarian regime.

    The latest incident further raises tensions between Serbia and its former province. Serbia had put its troops on the border on the highest state of alert amid a series of recent clashes between Kosovo Serbs on one side, and Kosovo police and NATO-led peacekeepers on the other.

    A Kosovo official in Belgrade has requested to visit the three officers.

    Kurti also contacted U.S. officials and asked them to press Serbia to release the police officers.

    The incident came a day after Kosovo police arrested in northern Mitrovica — an area mostly populated by the ethnic Serb minority — an alleged organizer of Serb protests in the country’s north, including one in which last month 30 NATO-led peacekeepers were injured. Three police officers were injured in the operation.

    Tensions in Kosovo flared anew late last month, including with violent clashes, after Kosovo police seized local municipality buildings in northern Kosovo, where Serbs represent a majority, to install ethnic Albanian mayors who were elected in a local election in April after Serbs overwhelmingly boycotted the vote.

    Serbia and its former province Kosovo have been at odds for decades, with Belgrade refusing to recognize Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence. The latest violence near their shared border has stirred fears of a renewal of a 1998-99 conflict in Kosovo that claimed more than 10,000 lives, mostly ethnic Albanians.

    ___

    Llazar Semini reported from Tirana, Albania.

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  • Shootout in northwest Pakistan, along Afghan border, kills 3 soldiers, 3 militants, army says

    Shootout in northwest Pakistan, along Afghan border, kills 3 soldiers, 3 militants, army says

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    Pakistan’s army says militants attacked a security checkpoint in the country’s northwest, along the border with Afghanistan, triggering a shootout that left three soldiers and three militants dead

    PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Militants attacked a security checkpoint in northwestern Pakistan, along the border with Afghanistan, triggering a shootout that left three soldiers and three militants dead, the army said Sunday.

    Four militants were also wounded, the military said in a statement.

    The overnight shootout early Saturday took place in the Miran Shah tribal area of North Waziristan district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, a former stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban, a militant group also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP.

    The Pakistani army carried out search operations to hunt down those responsible for the attack. They seized a cache of ammunition from the dead militants.

    The military said it was “determined to eliminate the menace of terrorism.”

    Although the army says it has cleared North Waziristan of militants, occasional attacks and shootouts continue, raising concerns that the Pakistani Taliban are regrouping in the area.

    Though a separate group, the TTP remains a close ally of the Afghan Taliban, who seized power in Afghanistan in mid-August 2021, during the last weeks of the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces from the country after two decades of war.

    The takeover emboldened the TTP. They unilaterally ended a cease-fire agreement with the Pakistani government last November and have since stepped up their attacks in the country, particularly against the army.

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  • Homeland Security names Border Patrol veteran Jason Owens to lead the agency

    Homeland Security names Border Patrol veteran Jason Owens to lead the agency

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    The Biden administration named U.S. Border Patrol veteran Jason Owens to lead the agency, replacing retiring chief Raul Ortiz

    As the sun sets, migrants wait outside a gate in the border fence to enter into El Paso, Texas, to be processed by the Border Patrol, Thursday, May 11, 2023. Migrants rushed across the Mexico border, racing to enter the U.S. before pandemic-related asylum restrictions are lifted in a shift that threatens to put a historic strain on the nation’s beleaguered immigration system. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)

    The Associated Press

    WASHINGTON — The Biden administration on Friday named U.S. Border Patrol veteran Jason Owens to lead the agency, replacing retiring chief Raul Ortiz at a time of intense political scrutiny over the administration’s immigration policies.

    In a statement announcing Owens’ promotion, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said, “Chief Owens is a talented, selfless, and inspiring leader who is dedicated to the Border Patrol’s law enforcement mission, the men and women who fulfill it, and the country that we all serve.”

    “I am inspired by his commitment to the mission, and am grateful to him for his continued service in this new leadership role,” Mayorkas added.

    The New York Times reported that Owens has been with the Border Patrol for more than 20 years, most recently as the head of the Del Rio division in Texas.

    Del Rio is one of nine sectors along the southern border. The sector stretches 245 miles (395 kilometers) along the Rio Grande River that divides Texas from Mexico. It is staffed by roughly 1,400 Border Patrol agents.

    According to his LinkedIn profile, before that Owens served as the head of the Border Patrol’s training academy in New Mexico. His resume also includes numerous stints in other locations along the southern and northern borders.

    The Border Patrol is responsible for patrolling the vast stretches of land between the legal border crossings to stop smuggling or illegal migration.

    Ortiz said last month in a note to staff that was obtained by The Associated Press that he will leave June 30.

    Ortiz managed the Border Patrol and its roughly 20,000 agents through the COVID-19 pandemic and Title 42 emergency health restrictions that began in March 2020 and allowed agents to quickly return migrants over the southern border.

    He also oversaw the rollout of new policies on May 11 meant to discourage migrants from crossing illegally while opening up other legal pathways. The number of crossings has dropped, and the border has not seen the high numbers of crossings or chaos anticipated by even President Joe Biden with the end of the restrictions.

    But Republicans, who say the Biden administration has done little to deter immigration, are still aiming to make it a key issue this Congress where they’ve been holding repeated hearings that have been harshly critical of the administration and specifically of Mayorkas.

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  • Under house arrest, fake heiress Anna ‘Delvey’ Sorokin launches podcast to rehab public image

    Under house arrest, fake heiress Anna ‘Delvey’ Sorokin launches podcast to rehab public image

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    NEW YORK — It’s a weekday afternoon and Anna Sorokin is on house arrest in a New York apartment building that has been condemned as imminently perilous to life. So she’s attempting to capture outside attention and relieving her boredom in the most quotidian way: starting a podcast.

    “So many people became famous for bad things and were able to kind of segue it into something different,” she recently told The Associated Press in her East Village apartment.

    “The main theme of my podcast is productive rule-breaking,” she said of “The Anna Delvey Show.”

    For now, she wants to reimagine her public image to shake her reputation of being a con artist and a scammer.

    “I’m on 24/7 house arrest. I’m only allowed to leave for my parole check-ins, my ICE check-ins and for medical emergencies,” she said. Behind her is a life-size cutout of her likeness — created by artist Kenny Schachter — which, like Sorokin herself, is wearing an ankle monitoring device.

    Going by the name Anna Delvey, she posed as a German heiress and lied about having a $67 million trust fund in order to apply for loans, run up debts and secure a historic building for a private arts club. She falsely claimed to be the daughter of a diplomat or an oil baron. Arrested in late 2017, she was convicted in 2019 on multiple counts of larceny and theft for bilking banks, hotels and wealthy New Yorkers out of $275,000.

    She was sentenced to four to 12 years in prison. After serving three years in prison though — about half of which was at Rikers Island jail complex — Sorokin, a German citizen, was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Later, she was released after posting a $10,000 bond in the fall to home confinement, pending a deportation hearing.

    Now she’s taking advantage of her time at home by launching a weekly podcast series that she hopes will tell her side of the story, featuring various expert and celebrity guests. Sorokin’s conversations with Julia Fox, “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli and Ottessa Moshfegh will be on upcoming episodes, according to Reunion Audio, the podcast company, who have also said she is interviewing Emily Ratajkowski though her team has not confirmed that.

    Sorokin’s fraud case became the basis for the Emmy-nominated Netflix series “Inventing Anna,” based on a New York magazine story. Sorokin, played by three-time Emmy winner Julia Garner, said she was a consultant on the show, but didn’t have “any control” over the final product.

    “For me to say I’m rehabilitated would be to admit something was wrong with me to begin with. Like, I was just young. I made some mistakes,” she said. “I’m trying to learn from them. My case, my criminal case is on direct appeal.”

    “Inventing Anna” was inspired by real-life events, but every episode included a disclaimer that the story was true except for the parts that were made up.

    “I know some of the stuff like definitely did not happen,” Sorokin said. “But it’s not really up to me to sit here and go over the series piece-by-piece, because it’s literally a Shonda Rhimes interpretation.”

    While Sorokin was jailed, her fanbase grew — even organizing a “Free Anna Delvey” art show that included some of her drawings, as well as works by other artists. Since then, she has attempted to sell pencil drawings for up to $25,000.

    The podcast gives her the opportunity to take back some control over the narrative, and it’s something she’s thought about doing for some time.

    “I wanted to start recording in jail, actually over the jail phone because, you know, there are some rappers who record whole albums while being incarcerated. I was like, ‘Why not record a podcast?’” Sorokin said.

    She was never able to do it, because it was “logistically difficult” to record episodes, according to the podcast company.

    As far as her time behind bars, Sorokin called prison a “transformative experience,” saying that she’s no longer the person who was arrested in 2017.

    “It’s been five years, a bit more than five years since I got arrested. So, I just like — I changed. I learned so much,” she said. Dressed in a white blouse, her signature black-ribbon tie and dark slacks, her ankle bracelet is clearly visible.

    She lifts her pants leg to show it off and even explains how it works.

    “Sometimes you see the banks all operate the biggest fraud on a huge scale, but like if you bounce, I don’t know, a $500 check, then (it’s) fraud,” Sorokin said.

    This week, Sorokin’s guest on “The Anna Delvey Show” was model and rocker Julia Cumming of the New York City band, Sunflower Bean.

    During a discussion about what makes a real New Yorker, Cumming says Sorokin’s impact in the city qualifies her.

    “You are the first person I’ve ever hung out with under house arrest,” she said. “So that’s a huge accomplishment.”

    Sorokin agreed that she didn’t know anyone under house arrest either.

    Cumming responded: “It’s like you and Lindsay Lohan,” who was under house arrest in Los Angeles more than a decade ago.

    Sorokin believes her notoriety makes it’s easy for her to bring guests on the show.

    “I can get pretty much anybody up here,” she said with brash confidence.

    But there’s one guest she won’t be able to get: Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, who just began an 11-year prison sentence for overseeing a blood-testing hoax that became a parable about greed and hubris in Silicon Valley.

    “I’d love to speak to Elizabeth. I definitely think she’s an interesting person,” Sorokin said. “I can relate a little bit more is because we’re both females and have been trying to build something.”

    She would also consider having U.S. Rep. George Santos on the podcast, but doesn’t feel she has much in common with him. The New York Republican who fabricated an identity as a rich, Wall Street dealmaker while running for Congress, and was recently charged in a 13-count indictment that included fraud, money laundering, and theft of public funds.

    “I’m sure some of it is true, some of it — it’s not,” Sorokin said of things written about Santos.

    She added: “I get so many requests to give George Santos advice, jail advice or something. I kind of stayed away from that.”

    So, for now, the subject of the “Inventing Anna” series waits to find out if people tune into the podcast, available this week on all major platforms — and if her campaign to reinvent herself works.

    __

    AP journalist Anna Furman contributed reporting from Los Angeles.

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  • Panama launches operation in Darien jungle targeting organized crime, migrant smugglers

    Panama launches operation in Darien jungle targeting organized crime, migrant smugglers

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    Panama has launched a security operation along its shared border with Colombia to combat organized crime groups and migrant smugglers involved in record-setting migration through the perilous Darien Gap this year

    ByJUAN ZAMORANO Associated Press

    Panamanian border police attend a launch ceremony for Operation Shield in Nicanor, Darien province, Panama, Friday, June 2, 2023. Security officials said Operation Shield is part of the agreement reached with the governments of Colombia and the United States in April to stop the flow of migrants through the border’s jungle-clad mountains known as the Darien Gap. (AP Photo/Arnulfo Franco)

    The Associated Press

    NICANOR, Panama — Panama launched a security operation along its shared border with Colombia on Friday to combat criminal gangs and migrant smugglers involved in record-setting migration through the perilous Darien Gap this year.

    Security officials said Operation Shield is part of the agreement reached with the governments of Colombia and the United States in April to stop the flow of migrants through the border’s jungle-clad mountains.

    Panama will use previously U.S.-donated helicopters to increase aerial patrols of the largely roadless region, but stressed that it was a Panamanian operation. The government will also send more special border police units into the area to try to root out the criminal gangs.

    “This is an action by the Panamanian government against criminals who are earning fortunes from human pain,” Panama Security Minister Juan Manuel Pino said.

    Some 1,200 immigration agents, border police and members of the naval air service will participate. Pino denied that the operation represented the militarization of the Darien.

    Earlier this week, authorities said border police had killed three suspected bandits in a shootout in Darien.

    Officials dismissed any suggestion of closing the border. It was the first visible example of the efforts promised by the three governments.

    Last year, nearly 250,000 people crossed the Darien Gap, nearly double the 133,000 who crossed in 2021, and a new record. That increase was driven largely by Venezuelans, who accounted for some 60% of the migrants crossing there last year.

    In April, the United Nations warned that the unprecedented number of crossings to start the year suggested that some 400,000 migrants could cross this year. According to government data, nearly 170,000 migrants crossed the Darien in the first four months of the year, five times the number from the same period last year.

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  • Despite flags, Border Patrol staff didn’t review fragile 8-year-old girl’s file before she died

    Despite flags, Border Patrol staff didn’t review fragile 8-year-old girl’s file before she died

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    HARLINGEN, Texas — Border Patrol medical staff declined to review the file of an 8-year-old girl with a chronic heart condition and rare blood disorder before she appeared to have a seizure and died on her ninth day in custody, an internal investigation found.

    U.S. Customs and Border Protection has said the child’s parents shared the medical history with authorities on May 10, a day after the family was taken into custody.

    But a nurse practitioner declined to review documents about the girl the day she died, CBP’s Office of Professional Responsibility said in its initial statement Thursday on the May 17 death. The nurse practitioner reported denying three or four requests from the girl’s mother for an ambulance.

    Anadith Tanay Reyes Alvarez, whose parents are Honduran, was born in Panama with congenital heart disease. She received surgery three years ago that her mother, Mabel Alvarez Benedicks, characterized as successful during a May 19 interview with The Associated Press.

    A day before she died, Anadith showed a fever of 104.9 degrees Fahrenheit (40.5 degrees Celsius), the CBP report said.

    A surveillance video system at the Harlingen, Texas, station was out of service since April 13, a violation of federal law that prevented evidence collection, according to the Office of Professional Responsibility, akin to a police department’s office of internal affairs. The system was flagged for repair but wasn’t fixed until May 23, six days after the girl died.

    Still, the report relied on interviews with Border Patrol agents and contracted medical personnel to raise a host of new and troubling questions about what went wrong during the girl’s nine days in custody, which far exceeded the agency’s own limit of 72 hours.

    Investigators gave no explanation for decisions that medical staff made and appeared to be at a loss for words.

    “Despite the girl’s condition, her mother’s concerns, and the series of treatments required to manage her condition, contracted medical personnel did not transfer her to a hospital for higher-level care,” the Office of Professional Responsibility said.

    Troy Miller, CBP’s acting commissioner, said the initial investigation “provides important new information on this tragic death” and he reaffirmed recent measures including a review of all “medically fragile” cases in custody to ensure they are out of custody as soon as possible. Average time in custody has dropped by more than half for families in two weeks, he said.

    “(This death) was a deeply upsetting and unacceptable tragedy. We can — and we will — do better to ensure this never happens again,” Miller said.

    Anadith entered Brownsville, Texas, with her parents and two older siblings May 9 when daily illegal crossings topped 10,000 as migrants rushed to beat the end of pandemic-related restrictions on seeking asylum.

    She was diagnosed with the flu May 14 at a temporary holding facility in Donna, Texas, and was moved with her family to Harlingen. Staff had about nine encounters with Anadith and her mother over the next four days at the Harlingen station until her death over concerns including high fever, flu symptoms, nausea and breathing difficulties. She was given medications, a cold pack and a cold shower, according to the Office of Professional Responsibility.

    A court-appointed monitor expressed concern in January about chronic conditions of medically fragile children not getting through to Border Patrol staff.

    Dr. Paul H. Wise, a Stanford University pediatrics professor who was in South Texas last week to look into the circumstances around what he said was a “preventable” death, said there should be little hesitation about sending ill children to the hospital, especially those with chronic conditions.

    Anadith’s mother told the AP that she informed staff of her child’s conditions, which included sickle-cell anemia, and repeatedly asked for medical assistance and an ambulance to take her daughter to a hospital but the request were denied until her child fell unconscious.

    Karla Marisol Vargas, an attorney for the Texas Civil Rights Project who is representing the family, said Border Patrol agents rejected her pleas for medicine until the day she died.

    “They refused to review documents showing the illnesses that her daughter had,” Vargas said.

    The family is living with relatives in New York City while funeral arrangements are made.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed to this story.

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  • US expands slots for asylum app at land crossings as demand overwhelms supply

    US expands slots for asylum app at land crossings as demand overwhelms supply

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    HARLINGEN, Texas — U.S. authorities on Thursday expanded slots to seek asylum at land crossings with Mexico through a mobile app for the second time in less than a month, seeking to dispel doubts it isn’t a viable option.

    There are now 1,250 appointments at eight land crossings, up from 1,000 previously and 740 in early May.

    The increase “reflects our commitment to continue to expand lawful options for migrants,” said Blas Nuñez-Neto, the Homeland Security Department’s assistant secretary for border and immigration policy. “We’ll continue to expand appointments at the border as our operations allow in terms of capacity.”

    Nuñez-Neto called CBP One a “safe and orderly option” during a visit to Harlingen, Texas. He announced the expansion a week after Texas sued to end what the state government considers an illegal method of boosting immigration.

    Demand has far outstripped supply from the Jan. 12 start, prompting many to consider crossing the border illegally or giving up. Enrique Lucero, migrant affairs director for the city of Tijuana, said the latest increase would have little impact considering how many are waiting.

    “It’s not a big deal,” he said. “It’s still very low and not enough for the pent-up demand.”

    After pandemic-related asylum restrictions ended May 11, the Biden administration continued its embrace of a carrot-and-stick approach to the border, introducing a general ban on asylum for people who travel through other countries, like Mexico, and enter the U.S. illegally.

    U.S. authorities are trying to funnel people to “legal pathways” like CBP One and parole for up to 30,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans who apply online with a financial sponsor and arrive by air.

    CBP One is for people of any nationality who apply in central and northern and northern Mexico and enter by land.

    The expansion on Thursday was met with with cautious optimism and mild indifference among some of the 150 people, mostly families with young children, camped on a sidewalk at a border crossing where Tijuana leads to San Diego, hoping U.S. officials admit them without a CBP One appointment.

    They said it appeared authorities were allowing about one family every several hours, enough to create a growing bottleneck over the last week as word spread it was an alternative.

    Carlos Vasquez, 25, reached southern Mexico from Honduras in January with his pregnant wife and their 4-year-old daughter and started trying daily on the app once he was in central Mexico. He became frustrated and, on Monday, began sleeping at the border camp, hoping U..S. officials would take mercy on his family.

    Vasquez said the increase to 1,250 a day was good news but not enough for a major impact.

    “We are many and there are few chosen,” he said.

    Sergio Hernandez, 35, scored an appointment on May 24 after more than five months of daily effort. The appointments are scheduled up to two weeks out.

    Hernandez, a Guatemalan who plans to seek asylum while living with a childhood friend in Kansas City, Missouri, said he had received countless “system error” messages before confirming a slot. He was once given a date on his phone screen but email confirmation never arrived.

    “They keep improving it little by little,” he said.

    Hernandez, who was traveling alone, said perceptions persist that larger families are at a disadvantage, which U.S. officials deny.

    Beatriz Melchor, 47, said she would wait to see if the latest increase has an impact. She has been trying the app for about six weeks with her husband and son and said changes announced in early May have produced no noticeable benefit.

    The changes included giving higher priority to asylum-seekers who have been trying the app longest and making appointments available throughout the day instead of all at once, which created mad rushes.

    “We have more than a month trying and there are people here nine days, four days, and they get their appointments,” she said.

    Melchor said returning to her hometown in the Mexican state of Guerrero wasn’t an option. Criminals blocked exits and entrances and she had to escape. If the mobile app doesn’t work, she is prepared to wait, though she said Tijuana is unsafe.

    ___

    Spagat reported from Tijuana, Mexico.

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  • US Border Patrol chief is retiring following end of Title 42 restrictions at US-Mexico border

    US Border Patrol chief is retiring following end of Title 42 restrictions at US-Mexico border

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    The head of U.S. Border Patrol is stepping down from the post, following major changes at the U.S.-Mexico border that came with the end of Title 42 pandemic restrictions

    ByCOLLEEN LONG Associated Press

    FILE – U.S. Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz listens during a news conference, Jan. 5, 2023, in Washington. The head of the U.S. Border Patrol is stepping down following major changes at the U.S.-Mexico border that came with the end of Title 42 pandemic restrictions. Ortiz said in a note to staff Tuesday, May 30, obtained by The Associated Press, that he has decided to retire effective Friday, June 30. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

    The Associated Press

    WASHINGTON — The head of the U.S. Border Patrol is stepping down following major changes at the U.S.-Mexico border that came with the end of Title 42 pandemic restrictions.

    Chief Raul Ortiz said in a note to staff Tuesday obtained by The Associated Press that he has decided to retire effective June 30.

    Ortiz has been on the job for 32 years and held many different jobs.

    “I leave at ease, knowing we have a tremendous uniformed and professional workforce, strong relationships with our union partners, and outstanding leaders who will continue to tirelessly advocate for you each day,” he said in the note.

    Ortiz took over when asked by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas after the Biden administration pushed out the former chief, Rodney Scott. Ortiz had planned to retire but didn’t in order to take the helm.

    The Border Patrol and its 19,000 agents have been under a constant spotlight for years. Under Title 42, migrants were returned over the border and denied the right to seek asylum. U.S. officials turned away migrants more than 2.8 million times. The restrictions were in place since March 2020 and ended May 11. The Biden administration has put in place a new set of restrictions at the border that are meant to discourage migrants from crossing illegally and opened up other legal pathways.

    It’s not clear yet who will replace Ortiz.

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  • US Border Patrol says agents who killed man in Arizona were answering report of gunfire

    US Border Patrol says agents who killed man in Arizona were answering report of gunfire

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    AJO, Ariz. — U.S. Border Patrol agents answering reports of gunfire shot and killed a man on a tribal reservation in southern Arizona after he abruptly threw something and raised his arm, the agency said Monday.

    The FBI and Tohono O’odham Nation are investigating Thursday night’s fatal shooting of Raymond Mattia.

    Monday’s U.S. Customs and Border Protection statement said tribal police had asked Border Patrol agents for help in responding to a report of shots fired west of the Menagers Dam community on tribal land near the U.S.-Mexico border.

    At around 9:30 p.m., the agents were told that reports indicated shots had been fired near the home of a “named individual” and a tribal officer went to the location to look for the person, with the agents following in separate cars, the statement said.

    A few minutes after arriving, the police officer and the agents encountered a man outside of a home near their parked cars, the statement said.

    The man threw some kind of object toward the officer that landed a few feet away and then “abruptly extended his right arm away from his body and three agents fired their service weapons, striking the individual several times,” the statement said.

    Because of bad weather, no air ambulance was available to take the man to a hospital and despite lifesaving efforts he was declared dead shortly after 10 p.m., according to the statement.

    An autopsy was conducted but the Pima County Medical Examiner’s Office didn’t immediately release details.

    The three Border Patrol agents who opened fire and at least seven others were wearing body cameras and activated them during the incident, the statement said.

    On Sunday, tribal chairman Ned Norris Jr. identified the man as Mattia, a member of the Tohono O’odham Nation.

    Norris and the Border Patrol didn’t immediately release other details about the shooting, including whether investigators had confirmed the earlier reports of gunfire and whether any weapon was found.

    Tucson TV station KVOA reported earlier that family members of Mattia, who didn’t want to be identified by name, told the station that he had called the Border Patrol because there were multiple migrants who had trespassed into his yard and he wanted assistance getting them out of his property.

    Family members also said that Mattia had gone outside when he saw the agents and was only two feet from his front door when dozens of shots were fired at him.

    Those details also couldn’t immediately be verified.

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  • 8-year-old girl sought medical help 3 times on day she died, US immigration officials say

    8-year-old girl sought medical help 3 times on day she died, US immigration officials say

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    HARLINGEN, Texas — HARLINGEN, Texas (AP) — An 8-year-old girl who died last week in Border Patrol custody was seen at least three separate times by medical personnel on the day of her death — complaining of vomiting, a stomachache and later suffering what appeared to be a seizure — before she was taken to a hospital, U.S. immigration officials said Sunday.

    The girl’s mother had previously told The Associated Press that agents had repeatedly ignored her pleas to hospitalize her medically fragile daughter, who had a history of heart problems and sick cell anemia. Anadith Tanay Reyes Alvarez, whose parents are Honduran, was born in Panama with congenital heart disease.

    “She cried and begged for her life, and they ignored her. They didn’t do anything for her,” Mabel Alvarez Benedicks, the mother of Anadith, had previously told The Associated Press during an interview Friday.

    In a statement, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said it knew about the girl’s medical history when personnel began treating her for influenza four days before her death on May 17.

    CBP Acting Commissioner Troy Miller said in a statement that while his agency awaits the results of an internal investigation, he has ordered several steps be taken to ensure appropriate care for all medically fragile people in his agency’s custody.

    These actions include reviewing cases of all known medically fragile individuals currently in custody to ensure their time being held is limited and examining medical-care practices at CBP facilities to see if more personnel are needed.

    “We must ensure that medically fragile individuals receive the best possible care and spend the minimum amount of time possible in CBP custody,” Miller said, adding his agency is “deeply saddened” by the girl’s “tragic death.”

    Anadith’s death has raised questions about whether the Border Patrol properly handled the situation. It was the second child migrant death in two weeks in U.S. government custody after a rush of illegal border crossings amid the expiration of pandemic-related asylum limits known as Title 42 severely strained holding facilities.

    According to a CBP statement, Anadith had first voiced complaints of abdominal pain, nasal congestion, and cough on the afternoon of May 14. She had a temperature of 101.8 degrees Fahrenheit (38.7 Celsius)

    After a test showed she had influenza, Anadith was given acetaminophen, ibuprofen, medicine for nausea and Tamiflu, a flu treatment, according to CBP.

    The family was then transferred from a facility in Donna, Texas, to one in Harlingen, Texas.

    She continued to be given Tamiflu for the next two days. She was also given ibuprofen, according to CBP.

    Alvarez Benedicks had told the AP her daughter’s health got progressively worse during those days and that doctors at the station denied her repeated requests for an ambulance to take the girl to a hospital.

    “I felt like they didn’t believe me,” Alvarez Benedicks said.

    On May 17, the girl and her mother went to the Harlingen Border Patrol Station’s medical unit at least three times, CBP said. In the first visit, Anadith complained of vomiting. In the second, she child complained of a stomachache. By the third visit at 1:55 p.m., “the mother was carrying the girl who appeared to be having a seizure, after which records indicate the child became unresponsive,” according to CBP.

    Medical personnel began performing CPR before she was taken to a hospital in Harlingen, where she was pronounced dead at 2:50 p.m.

    A medical examiner is waiting for additional tests before determining a cause of death.

    Her death came a week after a 17-year-old Honduran boy, Ángel Eduardo Maradiaga Espinoza, died in U.S. Health and Human Services Department custody. He was traveling alone.

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  • Mother of 8-year-old girl who died in Border Patrol custody says pleas for hospital care were denied

    Mother of 8-year-old girl who died in Border Patrol custody says pleas for hospital care were denied

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    McALLEN, Texas — The mother of an 8-year-old girl who died in Border Patrol custody said Friday that agents repeatedly ignored pleas to hospitalize her medically fragile daughter as she felt pain in her bones, struggled to breathe and was unable to walk.

    Agents said her daughter’s diagnosis of influenza did not require hospital care, Mabel Alvarez Benedicks said in an emotional phone interview. They knew the girl had a history of heart problems and sickle cell anemia.

    “They killed my daughter, because she was nearly a day and a half without being able to breathe,” the mother said. “She cried and begged for her life and they ignored her. They didn’t do anything for her.

    The girl died Wednesday on what her mother said was the family’s ninth day in Border Patrol custody. People are to be held no more than 72 hours under agency policy, a rule that is violated during unusually busy times.

    The account is almost certain to raise questions about whether the Border Patrol properly handled the situation, the second child migrant death in two weeks in U.S. government custody after a rush of illegal border crossing severely strained holding facilities.

    Roderick Kise, a spokesperson for the Border Patrol’s parent agency, Customs and Border Protection, said he could not comment beyond an initial statement because the death was the subject of an open investigation. In that statement, CBP said the girl experienced “a medical emergency” at a station in Harlingen, Texas, and died later that day at a hospital.

    “No parent should have to beg for their child to get basic medical attention and be forced to watch as their child’s health worsens to the point where they cannot be saved,” Jennifer Nagda, chief programs officer at the nonprofit Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights, said in a statement Saturday.

    Nagda urged the Biden administration to create “welcoming centers” at the border where immigration officials can process asylum-seeking families with children while non-governmental groups can offer food, clothing and medical care.

    “The only way to stop these preventable deaths is to stop jailing families. To stop jailing children,” Nagda said.

    Alvarez Benedicks, 35, said she, her husband and three children, aged 14, 12 and 8, crossed the border to Brownsville, Texas, on May 9. After a doctor diagnosed the 8-year-old, Anadith Tanay Reyes Alvarez, with influenza, the family was sent to the Harlingen station on May 14. It was unclear why the family was held so long.

    Anadith woke up her first day in the Harlingen station with a fever and had a headache, according to her mother, who said the station was dusty and smelled of urine.

    When she reported her daughter’s bone pain to an agent, she said he responded, “’Oh, your daughter is growing up. That’s why her bones hurt. Give her water.’”

    “I just looked at him,” Alvarez Benedicks said. “How would he know what to do if he’s not a doctor?”

    She said a doctor told her the pain was related to influenza. She asked for an ambulance to take her daughter to the hospital for breathing difficulties but was denied.

    “I felt like they didn’t believe me,” she said.

    Anadith received saline fluids, a shower and fever medication to reduce her temperature, but her breathing problems persisted, her mother said, adding that a sore throat prevented her from eating and she stopped walking.

    At one point, a doctor asked the parents to return if Anadith fainted, Alvarez Benedicks said. Their request for an ambulance was denied again when her blood pressure was checked Wednesday.

    An ambulance was called later that day after Anadith went limp and unconscious and blood came out of her mouth, her mother said. She insists her daughter had no vital signs in the Border Patrol station before leaving for the hospital.

    The family is staying at a McAllen, Texas, migrant shelter and seeking money to bring their daughter’s remains to New York City, their final destination in the U.S.

    Anadith, whose parents are Honduran, was born in Panama with congenital heart disease. She received surgery three years ago that her mother characterized as successful. It inspired Anadith to want to become a doctor.

    Her death came a week after a 17-year-old Honduran boy, Ángel Eduardo Maradiaga Espinoza, died in U.S. Health and Human Services Department custody. He was traveling alone.

    A rush to the border before pandemic-related asylum limits known as Title 42 expired brought extraordinary pressure. The Border Patrol took an average of 10,100 people a into custody a day over four days last week, compared to a daily average of 5,200 in March.

    The Border Patrol had 28,717 people in custody on May 10, one day before pandemic asylum restrictions expired, which was double from two weeks earlier, according to a court filing. By Sunday, the custody count dropped 23% to 22,259, still historically high.

    Custody capacity is about 17,000, according to a government document last year, and the administration has been adding temporary giant tents like one in San Diego that opened in January with room for about 500 people.

    On Sunday, the average time in custody was 77 hours.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed to this report.

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  • 8-year-old girl dies in Border Patrol custody in Harlingen, Texas, as agency seeks to ease crowding

    8-year-old girl dies in Border Patrol custody in Harlingen, Texas, as agency seeks to ease crowding

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    U.S. authorities say an 8-year-old girl died Wednesday in Border Patrol custody, a rare occurrence that comes as the agency struggles with overcrowding

    FILE – Migrants wait in line adjacent to the border fence under the watch of the Texas National Guard to enter into El Paso, Texas, Wednesday, May 10, 2023. U.S. authorities say an 8-year-old girl died Wednesday, May 17, in Border Patrol custody, a rare occurrence that comes as the agency struggles with overcrowding. The Border Patrol had 28,717 people in custody on May 10, the day before pandemic-related asylum restrictions expired, which was double from two weeks earlier, according to a court filing. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton, File)

    The Associated Press

    HARLINGEN, Texas — An 8-year-old girl died Wednesday in Border Patrol custody, authorities said, a rare occurrence that comes as the agency struggles with overcrowding.

    The child and her family were being held at a station in Harlingen, Texas, in Rio Grande Valley, one of the busiest corridors for illegal crossings, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Border Patrol’s parent agency, said in a statement.

    The girl experienced “a medical emergency” and was taken to a nearby hospital, where she died, according to the statement, which did not disclose her nationality or provide additional information about the incident.

    Customs and Border Protection’s internal affairs office will investigate, and the Homeland Security Department’s inspector general and Harlingen police have been notified, Miller said. Sgt. Larry Moore, a spokesman for the Harlingen Police Department, said he had no information about the death.

    The Border Patrol had 28,717 people in custody on May 10, the day before pandemic-related asylum restrictions expired, which was double from two weeks earlier, according to a court filing. By Sunday, the number had dropped 23% to 22,259, still unusually high.

    The average time in custody on Sunday was 77 hours, five hours more than the maximum allowed under agency policy.

    Last week, the Border Patrol began releasing migrants in the U.S. without notices to appear in immigration court, instead directing them to report to an immigration office within 60 days. The move spares Border Patrol agents time-consuming processing duties, allowing them to open space in holding facilities. A federal judge in Florida ordered an end to the quick releases.

    Also last week, a 17-year-old Honduran boy traveling alone died in U.S. Health and Human Services Department custody.

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  • DeSantis to send Florida National Guard soldiers to Texas for border security

    DeSantis to send Florida National Guard soldiers to Texas for border security

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    Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has announced that he plans to send over 1,100 National Guard soldiers and law enforcement officers to Texas to assist with border security between the United States and Mexico

    FILE – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks during a news conference to sign several bills related to public education and increases in teacher pay, in Miami, Tuesday, May 9, 2023. DeSantis and former President Donald Trump will share the spotlight in Iowa on Saturday, May 13, providing a chance to sway influential conservative activists and contrast their campaign styles in Republicans’ leadoff voting state. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

    The Associated Press

    TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Tuesday that he plans to send more than 1,100 National Guard soldiers and law enforcement officers to Texas to assist with border security between the United States and Mexico.

    The Republican governor said he’s sending 800 soldiers, 200 Florida Department of Law Enforcement officers, 101 state troopers and 20 wildlife officers. Florida will also send five planes, 17 drones, two command vehicles and 10 boats, according to a news release. State and federal officials have been concerned about a possible surge in border crossings after pandemic-era asylum restrictions ended last week.

    “At my direction, state agencies including law enforcement and the Florida National Guard are being deployed to Texas, with assets including personnel, boats and planes,” DeSantis said in statement.

    DeSantis previously sent support to the U.S. southern border in Texas and Arizona in 2021 following requests for assistance from the governors of those states.

    DeSantis, who is soon expected to announce his candidacy for the 2024 presidential race, has made immigration a major issue during his time as governor. Last week, DeSantis signed into law a sweeping immigration bill that bolsters his migrant relocation program and limits social services for immigrants lacking permanent legal status.

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  • Border crossings are off from last week’s highs as US pins hopes for order on mobile app

    Border crossings are off from last week’s highs as US pins hopes for order on mobile app

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    TIJUANA, Mexico — Pandemic-era limits on asylum known as Title 42 have been rarely discussed among many of tens of thousands of migrants massed on Mexico’s border with the United States.

    Their eyes were — and are — fixed instead on a new U.S. government mobile app that grants 1,000 people daily an appointment to cross the border and seek asylum while living in the U.S. With demand far outstripping available slots, the app has been an exercise in frustration for many — and a test of the Biden administration’s strategy of coupling new legal paths to entry with severe consequences for those who don’t.

    “You start to give up hope but it’s the only way,” Teresa Muñoz, 48, who abandoned her home in the Mexican state of Michoacan after a gang killed her husband and beat her. She has been trying for a month to gain entry through the app, called CBPOne, while staying in a Tijuana shelter with her two children and 2-year-old grandson.

    U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the Border Patrol made 6,300 arrests on Friday — the first day after Title 42 expired — and 4,200 Saturday. That’s sharply below the 10,000-plus on three days last week as migrants rushed to get in before new policies to restrict asylum took effect.

    “It is still early,” Mayorkas said Sunday on CNN’s ‘State of the Union.’ “We are in day three, but we have been planning for this transition for months and months. And we have been executing on our plan. And we will continue to do so.”

    Despite the drop in recent days, authorities predict arrests will spike to between 12,000 and 14,000 a day, Matthew Hudak, deputy Border Patrol chief, said in a court filing Friday. And authorities cannot confidently estimate how many will cross, Hudak said, noting intelligence reports failed to quickly flag a “singular surge” of 18,000 predominantly Haitian migrants in Del Rio, Texas, in September 2021.

    More than 27,000 migrants were in custody along the border one day last week, a number that may top 45,000 by the end of May if authorities can’t release migrants without orders to appear in immigration court, Hudak said.

    The administration plans to ask an appeals court Monday for permission to release migrants without orders to appear in court. Authorities say it takes between 90 minutes and two hours to process a single adult for court — potentially choking Border Patrol holding facilities – and longer to process families. By contrast, it takes only 20 minutes to release someone with instructions to report to an immigration office in 60 days, a common practice since 2021 to ease overcrowding along the border.

    The Justice Department even raised the possibility of declining to take people into custody if it can’t quickly release migrants, calling that a “worst-case scenario.”

    The administration is touting new legal pathways in an effort to deter illegal crossings, including parole for 30,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans a month who apply online with a financial sponsor and arrive at an airport.

    Hundreds of predominantly Colombian migrants waited to be processed Saturday in searing heat near Jacumba, California, having slept for days in thatched tents east of San Diego and getting by on the Border Patrol’s limited supply of cookies and water. Several said they crossed illegally after trying the app without success or hearing tales of frustration from others.

    Ana Cuna, 27, said she and other Colombians paid $1,300 each to be guided across the border after reaching Tijuana. She said she touched foot on U.S. soil hours before Title 42 expired Thursday but, like others, was given a numbered wristband by the Border Patrol and, two days later, had not been processed.

    Under Title 42, a public-health rule, migrants were denied asylum more than 2.8 million times on grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19. When it expired, the administration launched a policy to deny asylum to people who travel through another country, like Mexico, to the U.S., with few exceptions.

    “We want to come according to the law and be welcomed,” said Cuna, whose thatched tent included Colombian women and families hoping to reach Chicago, San Antonio, Philadelphia and Spartanburg, South Carolina.

    Releasing migrants without court orders but with instructions to report an immigration office in 60 days became widespread in 2021. Directing that processing work to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices when migrants report to the agency’s offices created additional delays – with ICE offices in New York backed up until 2033 just to schedule an initial court appearance.

    U.S. District Judge T. Kent Wetherell n Pensacola, Florida, ordered an end to the practice in March, which the administration had effectively stopped by then anyway. It chose not to appeal the ruling but reactivated the policy last week, calling it an emergency response. The state of Florida protested and Wetherell ordered the administration to avoid the quick releases for two weeks. He scheduled a hearing on Friday.

    Since CBPOne began Jan. 12 for asylum-seekers, it has exasperated many with error messages, difficulty capturing photos and a frantic daily ritual of racing thumbs on phone screens until slots run out within minutes.

    In Tijuana, Muñoz looked into being smuggled through the mountains east of San Diego but determined it would cost too much. She is still haunted by walking through the Arizona desert in the mid-2000s on a grueling one-week trek. After saving money working double shifts at a supermarket near Los Angeles, she returned to Mexico to raise her children.

    Last week, the administration increased the number of slots to 1,000 from 740, awarded on the app, began granting priority to those who try longest, and released slots gradually throughout the day instead of all at once, which had created mad rushes. So far, Muñoz said she is unconvinced.

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  • Tribes whose lands are cut in two by US borders push for easier crossings

    Tribes whose lands are cut in two by US borders push for easier crossings

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    For four hours, Raymond V. Buelna, a cultural leader for the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, sat on a metal bench in a concrete holding space at the U.S.-Mexico border, separated from the two people he was taking to an Easter ceremony on tribal land in Arizona and wondering when they might be released.

    It was February 2022 and Buelna, a U.S. citizen, was driving the pair — both from the sovereign Native American nation’s related tribal community in northwestern Mexico — from their home to the reservation southwest of Tucson. They’d been authorized by U.S. officials to cross the border. But when Buelna asked an agent why they were detained, he was told to wait for the officer who brought him in.

    “They know that we’re coming,” said Buelna, who has made the trip for a variety of ceremonies for 20 years. “We did all this work and then we’re still sitting there.”

    Now, the Pascua Yaqui Tribe is trying to change this — for themselves and potentially dozens of other tribes in the U.S.

    Tribal officials have drafted regulations to formalize the border-crossing process, working with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s recently formed Tribal Homeland Security Advisory Council, comprised of 15 Native officials across the U.S.

    Their work could provide a template for dozens of Native American nations whose homelands, like the Pascua Yaquis, were sliced in two by modern-day U.S. borders.

    If approved, the rules would become the first clearly established U.S. border crossing procedures specific to a Native American tribe that could then be used by others, according to Christina Leza, associate professor of anthropology at Colorado College.

    The regulations would last five years, to be renewed and amended as needed, and require training local U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents and consular personnel on the tribe’s cultural heritage, language and traditions. It would require a Yaqui interpreter to be available when needed. It also would require close coordination with the tribe so border crossings are prompt.

    “This is just something that will help everybody,” said Fred Urbina, attorney general for the Pascua Yaqui Tribe. “It will make things more efficient.”

    Urbina said the tribe has met with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas about the proposal. DHS did not immediately respond to repeated requests for comment by phone and email on the status of the regulations.

    When family members, deer dancers or musicians living in Sonora, Mexico, make the trip into the U.S. for ceremonies, tribal recognition celebrations or family events, they are typically issued an ID card from the tribe and a visitor visa or parole permit from the U.S. government. Still, they still face border officials who they say lack the cultural awareness to process them without problems.

    In the last two years, Buelna said, he has made the roundtrip about 18 times and was detained on four of them. He said border officials question the people he’s escorting, whose first language is Yaqui, without an interpreter, and cultural objects, such as deer and pig hooves, have been confiscated. Officials have touched ceremonial objects, despite only certain people being permitted by the tribe to do so.

    Urbina explained that the tribe encountered new challenges when Homeland Security was formed after 9/11 and border security was heightened. It became more pronounced in 2020, when the U.S. prohibited “non-essential” travel across the border to control the spread of the coronavirus. That ban ended this week, but new restrictions are in place.

    As a sovereignty issue, Native American nations should be able to determine their people’s ability to cross the border to preserve the ceremonial life of their communities, Leza said.

    “If the federal government is saying our particular priorities, our interests in terms of securing our borders, trump your interests as a sovereign nation, then that’s not really a recognition of the sovereignty of those tribal nations,” she said.

    Tribes along the U.S.-Canada border face similar problems.

    The Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians is headquartered in Michigan, but 173 of its more than 49,000 enrolled members live in Canada. Kimberly Hampton, the tribe’s officer-secretary and vice chair of the Tribal Homeland Security Advisory Council, said those members cross the border for powwows, fasting and to visit with traditional healers and family, but border officials have rudely rifled through eagle feathers and other cultural objects they are carrying.

    Hampton wants an agreement that includes having tribal liaisons at border crossings and training developed by the tribe for border personnel.

    Members of the Sault Ste. Marie tribe and the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe, which has about 8,000 members in the U.S. and about 8,000 in Canada, said they have also been asked at the border to prove that they possess at least 50% “blood of the American Indian race.” It stems from a requirement under the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act that “American Indians” born in Canada cannot be denied entry into the U.S. if they can prove this — often through a letter from the tribe.

    Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe Chief Michael L. Conners wants to eliminate the requirement and boost education for border agents on local and national tribal issues. Drafting regulations specific to the tribe, like the ones the Pascua Yaqui are doing, “would bring a lot of peace of mind to our whole community,” he said.

    For Buelna, waiting in that concrete holding space, he was reunited with the pair only after he told a border official he thought they’d been overlooked following a shift change, he said.

    “Why can’t there be a system?” Buelna asked. “Why can’t there be already a line for us where we can present the proper paperwork, everything that we need and go about our way?”

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  • Chaos on Mexico border averted, for now, as US turns page in migration rules

    Chaos on Mexico border averted, for now, as US turns page in migration rules

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    EL PASO, Texas — The U.S. turned the page on pandemic-era immigration restrictions with relative calm at its border with Mexico as migrants adapted to strict new rules aimed at discouraging illegal crossings and awaited the promise of new legal pathways for entering the country.

    A full day after the rules known as Title 42 were lifted, migrants and government officials on Friday were still assessing the effects of a switch to new regulations adopted by President Joe Biden’s administration in hope of stabilizing the Southwest border region and undercutting smugglers who charge migrants to get there.

    Migrants are now essentially barred from seeking asylum in the U.S. if they did not first apply online or seek protection in the countries they traveled through. Families allowed in as their immigration cases progress will face curfews and GPS monitoring. And for those expelled from the U.S., they can now be barred from entering the country for five years and face possible criminal prosecution.

    Across the river from El Paso, Texas, in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, many migrants watched their cellphones in hopes of getting a coveted appointment to seek entry. The official app to register to enter the U.S. underwent changes this week, as it offers appointments for migrants to enter through land crossings.

    Many migrants in northern Mexico resigned themselves to waiting for an appointment rather than approaching the border without authorization.

    “I hope it’s a little better and that the appointments are streamlined a little more,” said Yeremy Depablos, 21, a Venezuelan traveling with seven cousins who has been waiting in Ciudad Juárez for a month. Fearing deportation, Depablos did not want to cross illegally. “We have to do it the legal way.”

    The U.S. Homeland Security Department said it has not witnessed any substantial increase in immigration.

    But in southern Mexico, migrants including children still flocked to railways at Huehuetoca on Friday, desperate to clamor aboard freight trains heading north toward the U.S.

    The legal pathways touted by the Biden administration consist of a program that permits up to 30,000 people a month from Haiti, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela to enter if they apply online with a financial sponsor and enter through an airport.

    About 100 processing centers are opening in Guatemala, Colombia and elsewhere for migrants to apply to go to the U.S., Spain or Canada. Up to 1,000 can enter daily through land crossings with Mexico if they snag an appointment on the app.

    If it works, the system could fundamentally alter how migrants come to the southern border. But Biden, who is running for reelection, faces withering criticism from migrant advocates, who say he’s abandoning more humanitarian methods, and from Republicans, who claim he’s soft on border security. Two legal challenges already loom over the new asylum restrictions.

    Title 42 was initiated in March 2020 and allowed border officials to quickly return asylum seekers back over the border on grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19. But with the national emergency officially over, the restrictions have ended.

    While Title 42 prevented many from seeking asylum, it carried no legal consequences for expulsion like those under the new rules.

    In El Paso on Friday, a few dozen migrants lingered outside Sacred Heart Catholic Church and shelter, on streets where nearly 2,000 migrants were camped as recently as Tuesday.

    The Rev. Daniel Mora said most of the migrants took heed of flyers distributed by U.S. immigration authorities offering a “last chance” to submit to processing and left. El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser said that 1,800 migrants turned themselves over to Customs and Border Protection on Thursday.

    Melissa López, executive director for Diocesan Migrant and Refugee Services at El Paso, said many migrants have been willing to follow the legal pathway created by the federal government, but there is also fear about deportation and possible criminal penalties for people who cross the border illegally.

    Border holding facilities in the U.S. were already far beyond capacity in the run-up to Title 42’s expiration.

    In Florida, a federal judge appointed by former President Donald Trump has temporarily halted the administration’s plans to release people into the U.S.

    Customs and Border Protection said it would comply, but called it a “harmful ruling that will result in unsafe overcrowding” at migrant processing and detention facilities.

    A court date has been scheduled on whether to extend the ruling.

    Migrant-rights groups also sued the Biden administration on allegations that its new policy is no different than one adopted by Trump — and rejected by the same court.

    The Biden administration says its policy is different, arguing that it’s not an outright ban but imposes a higher burden of proof to get asylum and that it pairs restrictions with other newly opened legal pathways.

    At the Chaparral port of entry in Tijuana on Friday, a few migrants approached U.S. authorities after not being able to access the appointment app. One of them, a Salvadoran man named Jairo, said he was fleeing death threats back home.

    “We are truly afraid,” said Jairo who was traveling with his partner and their 3-year-old son and declined to share his last name. “We can’t remain any longer in Mexico and we can’t go back to Guatemala or El Salvador. If the U.S. can’t take us, we hope they can direct us to another country that can.”

    ___

    Gonzalez reported from Brownsville, Texas; Spagat reported from Tijuana, Mexico. Associated Press writers Colleen Long and Rebecca Santana in Washington; Gisela Salomon in Miami; Christopher Sherman in Mexico City; Gerardo Carrillo in Matamoros, Mexico; Maria Verza in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico; Julie Watson in Tijuana; Morgan Lee in Santa Fe, New Mexico; and Suman Naishadham in Tijuana, Mexico contributed to this report.

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