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Tag: Immigration

  • Plunge in border crossings could blunt GOP attack on Biden

    Plunge in border crossings could blunt GOP attack on Biden

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    SAN DIEGO — A sharp drop in illegal border crossings since December could blunt a Republican point of attack against President Joe Biden as the Democratic leader moves to reshape a broken asylum system that has dogged him and his predecessors.

    A new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows some support for changing the number of immigrants and asylum-seekers allowed into the country. About 4 in 10 U.S. adults say the level of immigration and asylum-seekers should be lowered, while about 2 in 10 say they should be higher, according to the poll. About a third want the numbers to remain the same.

    The decrease in border crossings followed Biden’s announcement in early January that Mexico would take back Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans under a pandemic-era rule that denies migrants the right to seek asylum as part of an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19. At the same time, the U.S. agreed to admit up to 30,000 a month of those four nationalities on humanitarian parole if they apply online, enter at an airport and find a financial sponsor.

    The administration has also proposed generally denying asylum to anyone who travels though another country on their way to the U.S. without seeking protection there — effectively all non-Mexicans who appear at the U.S. southern border.

    The new rules put forth by Biden could help the president fight back against critics who complain he hasn’t done enough to address border security issues. But the moves have also fueled anger among some of his Democratic allies who are concerned that he is furthering a Trump-era policy they view as anti-immigrant and hurting vulnerable migrants who are trying to escape dangerous conditions in their native countries.

    And the new changes — and subsequent drop in illegal border crossings — are unlikely to stop the barrage of attacks from conservatives who see border security as a powerful political weapon.

    Biden has been on the defensive as Republicans and right-wing media outlets have hammered him over the soaring increase in migrant encounters at the border. The new House GOP leadership has held hearings on what they call the “Biden border crisis” and talked of impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

    Agents detained migrants more than 2.5 million times at the southern border in 2022, including more than 250,000 in December, the highest on record. According to a U.S. official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, Border Patrol agents stopped migrants about 130,000 times in February, similar to January.

    Among Republicans, the poll shows about two-thirds say there should be fewer immigrants and asylum-seekers, while only about 1 in 10 say there should be more.

    Democrats are split: About a quarter say the number of immigrants should increase, a quarter say it should decrease, and about 4 in 10 say it should remain the same. They are slightly more supportive of asylum-seekers specifically, with 37% supporting an increase, 26% backing a decrease, and 36% saying the number should remain the same.

    Under U.S. law, numbers are not capped on asylum, which was largely a policy afterthought until about a decade ago. Since 2017, the U.S. has been the world’s most popular destination for asylum-seekers, according to U.N. figures. Even those who lose in court can stay for years while their cases wind through a backlogged system.

    Omar Reffell, a 38-year-old independent voter in Houston, said that he supports immigration but that news coverage of “caravans of people trying to cross the border” sends the wrong message to migrants.

    “People think that they just show up at the border, come across, there is not going to be any repercussions,” Reffell said. “I’m not against immigration. I think immigration is good for the country, but it has to happen in a very orderly manner or it puts a lot of stress, especially on the border states being able to provide resources.”

    More than 100,000 migrants each month were being released in U.S. border cities late last year with notices to appear in immigration court or report to immigration authorities.

    Dan Restrepo, a top White House adviser on Latin America during Barack Obama’s presidency, believes the American public will accept high levels of immigration — if a systematic process can be followed.

    The challenge in managing migration “is the sense of chaos and disorder that can be created by images of overwhelmed processing facilities and the like at the physical border,” he said. “It’s less the numbers and more the imagery” that bothers voters.

    Republicans cast Biden’s expansion of humanitarian parole for four nationalities as a political ploy to divert attention from the border and are not likely to let up on their criticism of the president on immigration. The Federation of American Immigration Reform, an anti-immigration group, called January’s plunge in border numbers “a shell game” to boost Biden’s reelection prospects.

    Fox News Channel has hit hard on the story over the last year. Reporter Bill Melguin said in a “Battle for the Border” special on Nov. 3 that he had spent more than 200 days on the Texas border.

    “We’ve been shooting the video all day long,” Melugin said in a typical report from the Texas town of Eagle Pass. “We keep getting these massive groups of 150 to 200 crossing every single day.”

    The network’s night-vision drone cameras have showed hundreds of migrants walking across the border, each one appearing as a luminous white stick slowly advancing across a dark screen.

    The poll found 39% of U.S. adults approve of how Biden is handling immigration, and 38% approve of him on border security — slightly below his overall approval ratings. About two-thirds of Democrats but only about 1 in 10 Republicans say they approve of his handling of either issue.

    The poll was taken Feb. 16-20, just before the administration proposed on Feb. 21 that asylum should generally be denied to migrants who pass through another country without applying for protection there if it is deemed safe. The administration is angling to have the new rule take effect before the pandemic-related limits on asylum are expected to end May 11, though legal challenges appear imminent.

    Becky Steelsmith, a 70-year-old independent voter from Zachary, Louisiana, is reluctant to heap blame on Biden because solutions also eluded his predecessors, but she notes that the optics are not great.

    “The only reason why I disagree with Biden’s handling of it is that I think he’s a little too soft,” said Steelsmith, a retired teacher. “I’m not saying it’s his fault that it’s happening. I’m saying that as president, he needs to sit down and really focus and come up with some kind of a solution, or the beginning of a solution.”

    ___

    The poll of 1,247 adults was conducted using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.

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  • Biden administration considering reviving detention of migrant families who cross border illegally | CNN Politics

    Biden administration considering reviving detention of migrant families who cross border illegally | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The Biden administration is considering reinstating the policy of detaining migrant families who cross the border illegally, a practice President Joe Biden had ended when he came into office, two administration officials said.

    It is one of several options administration officials are mulling as they prepare for the end of Title 42, the public health order that allows border agents to immediately turn away certain migrants who crossed the southern border illegally.

    White House and Department of Homeland Security officials have had multiple meetings in recent days to discuss the possibility of reviving the practice ahead of the anticipated expiration of Title 42 in May and as migrant border crossings remain high.

    The White House declined to comment.

    “No decisions have been made as we prepare for the Title 42 Public Health Order to lift,” a Homeland Security spokesperson told CNN. “The Administration will continue to prioritize safe, orderly, and humane processing of migrants.”

    One official said the administration is looking at multiple options for how to handle migrant families at the southern border, not all of them involving family detention.

    Another source familiar with the deliberations added that among the options discussed are some that wouldn’t involve detaining families in ICE facilities. This source said that family detentions would be limited to a small number of days – an attempt to set the policy apart from the Trump administration’s handling of family detentions.

    The New York Times was first to report the possible policy change.

    Biden has increasingly turned to tougher border enforcement measures in recent months, drawing criticism from immigrant advocates and progressive Democrats who view the changes as a return to some of the policies under President Donald Trump.

    The administration released a new rule last month that largely bars migrants who traveled through other countries on their way to the US-Mexico border from applying for asylum in the United States, marking a departure from decadeslong protocol.

    This story has been updated with additional reporting.

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  • Fact check: Trump delivers wildly dishonest speech at CPAC | CNN Politics

    Fact check: Trump delivers wildly dishonest speech at CPAC | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    As president, Donald Trump made some of his most thoroughly dishonest speeches at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference.

    As he embarks on another campaign for the presidency, Trump delivered another CPAC doozy Saturday night.

    Trump’s lengthy address to the right-wing gathering in Maryland was filled with wildly inaccurate claims about his own presidency, Joe Biden’s presidency, foreign affairs, crime, elections and other subjects.

    Here is a fact check of 23 of the false claims Trump made. (And that’s far from the total.)

    Crime in Manhattan

    While Trump criticized Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who has been investigating Trump’s company, he claimed that “killings are taking place at a number like nobody’s ever seen, right in Manhattan.”

    Facts First: It isn’t even close to true that Manhattan is experiencing a number of killings that nobody has ever seen. The region classified by the New York Police Department as Manhattan North had 43 reported murders in 2022; that region had 379 reported murders in 1990 and 306 murders in 1993. The Manhattan South region had 35 reported murders in 2022 versus 124 reported murders in 1990 and 86 murders in 1993. New York City as a whole is also nowhere near record homicide levels; the city had 438 reported murders in 2022 versus 2,262 in 1990 and 1,927 in 1993.

    Manhattan North had just eight reported murders this year through February 19, while Manhattan South had one. The city as a whole had 49 reported murders.

    The National Guard and Minnesota

    Talking about rioting amid racial justice protests after the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020, Trump claimed he had been ready to send in the National Guard in Seattle, then added, “We saved Minneapolis. The thing is, we’re not supposed to do that. Because it’s up to the governor, the Democrat governor. They never want any help. They don’t mind – it’s almost like they don’t mind to have their cities and states destroyed. There’s something wrong with these people.”

    Facts First: This is a reversal of reality. Minnesota’s Democratic governor, Tim Walz, not Trump, was the one who deployed the Minnesota National Guard during the 2020 unrest; Walz first activated the Guard more than seven hours before Trump publicly threatened to deploy the Guard himself. Walz’s office told CNN in 2020 that the governor activated the Guard in response to requests from officials in Minneapolis and St. Paul – cities also run by Democrats.

    Trump has repeatedly made the false claim that he was the one who sent the Guard to Minneapolis. You can read a longer fact check, from 2020, here.

    Trump’s executive order on monuments

    Trump boasted that he had taken effective action as president to stop the destruction of statues and memorials. He claimed: “I passed and signed an executive order. Anybody that does that gets 10 years in jail, with no negotiation – it’s not ’10’ but it turns into three months.” He added: “But we passed it. It was a very old law, and we found it – one of my very good legal people along with [adviser] Stephen Miller, they found it. They said, ‘Sir, I don’t know if you want to try and bring this back.’ I said. ‘I do.’”

    Facts First: Trump’s claim is false. He did not create a mandatory 10-year sentence for people who damage monuments. In fact, his 2020 executive order did not mandate any increase in sentences.

    Rather, the executive order simply directed the attorney general to “prioritize” investigations and prosecutions of monument-destruction cases and declared that it is federal policy to prosecute such cases to the fullest extent permitted under existing law, including an existing law that allowed a sentence of up to 10 years in prison for willfully damaging federal property. The executive order did nothing to force judges to impose a 10-year sentence.

    Vandalism in Portland

    Trump claimed, “How’s Portland doing? They don’t even have storefronts anymore. Everything’s two-by-four’s because they get burned down every week.”

    Facts First: This is a major exaggeration. Portland obviously still has hundreds of active storefronts, though it has struggled with downtown commercial vacancies for various reasons, and some businesses are sometimes vandalized by protesters. Trump has for years exaggerated the extent of property damage from protest vandalism in Portland.

    Russian expansionism

    Boasting of his foreign policy record, Trump claimed, “I was also the only president where Russia didn’t take over a country during my term.”

    Facts First: While it’s true that Russia didn’t take over a country during Trump’s term, it’s not true that he was the only US president under whom Russia didn’t take over a country. “Totally false,” Michael Khodarkovsky, a Loyola University Chicago history professor who is an expert on Russian imperialism, said in an email. “If by Russia he means the current Russian Federation that existed since 1991, then the best example is Clinton, 1992-98. During this time Russia fought a war in Chechnya, but Chechnya was not a country but one of Russia’s regions.”

    Khodarkovsky added, “If by Russia he means the USSR, as people often do, then from 1945, when the USSR occupied much of Eastern Europe until 1979, when USSR invaded Afghanistan, Moscow did not take over any new country. It only sent forces into countries it had taken over in 1945 (Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968).”

    NATO funding

    Trump said while talking about NATO funding: “And I told delinquent foreign nations – they were delinquent, they weren’t paying their bills – that if they wanted our protection, they had to pay up, and they had to pay up now.”

    Facts First: It’s not true that NATO countries weren’t paying “bills” until Trump came along or that they were “delinquent” in the sense of failing to pay bills – as numerous fact-checkers pointed out when Trump repeatedly used such language during his presidency. NATO members haven’t been failing to pay their share of the organization’s common budget to run the organization. And while it’s true that most NATO countries were not (and still are not) meeting NATO’s target of each country spending a minimum of 2% of gross domestic product on defense, that 2% figure is what NATO calls a “guideline”; it is not some sort of binding contract, and it does not create liabilities. An official NATO recommitment to the 2% guideline in 2014 merely said that members not currently at that level would “aim to move towards the 2% guideline within a decade.”

    NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg did credit Trump for securing increases in European NATO members’ defense spending, but it’s worth noting that those countries’ spending had also increased in the last two years of the Obama administration following Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea and the recommitment that year to the 2% guideline. NATO notes on its website that 2022 was “the eighth consecutive year of rising defence spending across European Allies and Canada.”

    NATO’s existence

    Boasting of how he had secured additional funding for NATO from countries, Trump claimed, “Actually, NATO wouldn’t even exist if I didn’t get them to pay up.”

    Facts First: This is nonsense.

    There was never any indication that NATO, created in 1949, would have ceased to exist in the early 2020s without additional funding from some members. The alliance was stable even with many members not meeting the alliance’s guideline of having members spend 2% of their gross domestic product on defense.

    We don’t often fact-check claims about what might have happened in an alternative scenario, but this Trump claim has no basis in reality. “The quote doesn’t make sense, obviously,” said Erwan Lagadec, research professor at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs and an expert on NATO.

    Lagadec noted that NATO has had no trouble getting allies to cover the roughly $3 billion in annual “direct” funding for the organization, which is “peanuts” to this group of countries. And he said that the only NATO member that had given “any sign” in recent years that it was thinking about leaving the alliance “was … the US, under Trump.” Lagadec added that the US leaving the alliance is one scenario that could realistically kill it, but that clearly wasn’t what Trump was talking about in his remarks on spending levels.

    James Goldgeier, an American University professor of international relations and Brookings Institution visiting fellow, said in an email: “NATO was founded in 1949, so it seems very clear that Donald Trump had nothing to do with its existence. In fact, the worry was that he would pull the US out of NATO, as his national security adviser warned he would do if he had been reelected.”

    The cost of NATO’s headquarters

    Trump mocked NATO’s headquarters, saying, “They spent – an office building that cost $3 billion. It’s like a skyscraper in Manhattan laid on its side. It’s one of the longest buildings I’ve ever seen. And I said, ‘You should have – instead of spending $3 billion, you should have spent $500 million building the greatest bunker you’ve ever seen. Because Russia didn’t – wouldn’t even need an airplane attack. One tank one shot through that beautiful glass building and it’s gone.’”

    Facts First: NATO did spend a lot of money on its headquarters in Belgium, but Trump’s “$3 billion” figure is a major exaggeration. When Trump used the same inaccurate figure in early 2020, NATO told CNN that the headquarters was actually constructed for a sum under the approved budget of about $1.18 billion euro, which is about $1.3 billion at exchange rates as of Sunday morning.

    The Pulitzer Prize

    Trump made his usual argument that The Washington Post and The New York Times should not have won a prestigious journalism award, a 2018 Pulitzer Prize, for their reporting on Russian interference in the 2016 election and its connections to Trump’s team. He then said, “And they were exactly wrong. And now they’ve even admitted that it was a hoax. It was a total hoax, and they got the prize.”

    Facts First: The Times and Post have not made any sort of “hoax” admission. “The claim is completely false,” Times spokesperson Charlie Stadtlander said in an email on Sunday.

    Stadtlander continued: “When our Pulitzer Prize shared with The Washington Post was challenged by the former President, the award was upheld by the Pulitzer Prize Board after an independent review. The board stated that ‘no passages or headlines, contentions or assertions in any of the winning submissions were discredited by facts that emerged subsequent to the conferral of the prizes.’ The Times’s reporting was also substantiated by the Mueller investigation and Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee investigation into the matter.”

    The Post referred CNN to that same July statement from the Pulitzer Prize Board.

    Awareness of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline

    Trump claimed of his opposition to Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Germany: “Nord Stream 2 – Nobody ever heard of it … right? Nobody ever heard of Nord Stream 2 until I came along. I started talking about Nord Stream 2. I had to go call it ‘the pipeline’ because nobody knew what I was talking about.”

    Facts First: This is standard Trump hyperbole; it’s just not true that “nobody” had heard of Nord Stream 2 before he began discussing it. Nord Stream 2 was a regular subject of media, government and diplomatic discussion before Trump took office. In fact, Biden publicly criticized it as vice president in 2016. Trump may well have generated increased US awareness to the controversial project, but “nobody ever heard of Nord Stream 2 until I came along” isn’t true.

    Trump and Nord Stream 2

    Trump claimed, “I got along very well with Putin even though I’m the one that ended his pipeline. Remember they said, ‘Trump is giving a lot to Russia.’ Really? Putin actually said to me, ‘If you’re my friend, I’d hate like hell to see you as my enemy.’ Because I ended the pipeline, right? Do you remember? Nord Stream 2.” He continued, “I ended it. It was dead.”

    Facts First: Trump did not kill Nord Stream 2. While he did approve sanctions on companies working on the project, that move came nearly three years into his presidency, when the pipeline was already around an estimated 90% complete – and the state-owned Russian gas company behind the project said shortly after the sanctions that it would complete the pipeline itself. The company announced in December 2020 that construction was resuming. And with days left in Trump’s term in January 2021, Germany announced that it had renewed permission for construction in its waters.

    The pipeline never began operations; Germany ended up halting the project as Russia was about to invade Ukraine early last year. The pipeline was damaged later in the year in what has been described as an act of sabotage.

    The Obama administration and Ukraine

    Trump claimed that while he provided lethal assistance to Ukraine, the Obama administration “didn’t want to get involved” and merely “supplied the bedsheets.” He said, “Do you remember? They supplied the bedsheets. And maybe even some pillows from [pillow businessman] Mike [Lindell], who’s sitting right over here. … But they supplied the bedsheets.”

    Facts First: This is inaccurate. While it’s true that the Obama administration declined to provide weapons to Ukraine, it provided more than $600 million in security assistance to Ukraine between 2014 and 2016 that involved far more than bedsheets. The aid included counter-artillery and counter-mortar radars, armored Humvees, tactical drones, night vision devices and medical supplies.

    Biden and a Ukrainian prosecutor

    Trump claimed that Biden, as vice president, held back a billion dollars from Ukraine until the country fired a prosecutor who was “after Hunter” and a company that was paying him. Trump was referring to Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s son, who sat on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings.

    Facts First: This is baseless. There has never been any evidence that Hunter Biden was under investigation by the prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, who had been widely faulted by Ukrainian anti-corruption activists and European countries for failing to investigate corruption. A former Ukrainian deputy prosecutor and a top anti-corruption activist have both said the Burisma-related investigation was dormant at the time Joe Biden pressured Ukraine to fire Shokin.

    Daria Kaleniuk, executive director of Ukraine’s Anti-Corruption Action Center, told The Washington Post in 2019: “Shokin was not investigating. He didn’t want to investigate Burisma. And Shokin was fired not because he wanted to do that investigation, but quite to the contrary, because he failed that investigation.” In addition, Shokin’s successor as prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko, told Bloomberg in 2019: “Hunter Biden did not violate any Ukrainian laws – at least as of now, we do not see any wrongdoing.”

    Biden, as vice president, was carrying out the policy of the US and its allies, not pursuing his own agenda, in threatening to withhold a billion-dollar US loan guarantee if the Ukrainian government did not sack Shokin. CNN fact-checked Trump’s claims on this subject at length in 2019.

    Trump and job creation

    Promising to save Americans’ jobs if he is elected again, Trump claimed, “We had the greatest job history of any president ever.”

    Facts First: This is false. The US lost about 2.7 million jobs during Trump’s presidency, the worst overall jobs record for any president. The net loss was largely because of the Covid-19 pandemic, but even Trump’s pre-pandemic jobs record – about 6.7 million jobs added – was far from the greatest of any president ever. The economy added more than 11.5 million jobs in the first term of Democratic President Bill Clinton in the 1990s.

    Tariffs on China

    Trump repeated a trade claim he made frequently during his presidency. Speaking of China, he said he “charged them” with tariffs that had the effect of “bringing in hundreds of billions of dollars pouring into our Treasury from China. Thank you very much, China.” He claimed that he did this even though “no other president had gotten even 10 cents – not one president got anything from them.”

    Facts First: As we have written repeatedly, it’s not true that no president before Trump had generated any revenue through tariffs on goods from China. In reality, the US has had tariffs on China for more than two centuries, and FactCheck.org reported in 2019 that the US generated an “average of $12.3 billion in custom duties a year from 2007 to 2016, according to the U.S. International Trade Commission DataWeb.” Also, American importers, not Chinese exporters, make the actual tariff payments – and study after study during Trump’s presidency found that Americans were bearing most of the cost of the tariffs.

    The trade deficit with China

    Trump went on to repeat a false claim he made more than 100 times as president – that the US used to have a trade deficit with China of more than $500 billion. He claimed it was “five-, six-, seven-hundred billion dollars a year.”

    Facts First: The US has never had a $500 billion, $600 billion or $700 billion trade deficit with China even if you only count trade in goods and ignore the services trade in which the US runs a surplus with China. The pre-Trump record for a goods deficit with China was about $367 billion in 2015. The goods deficit hit a new record of about $418 billion under Trump in 2018 before falling back under $400 billion in subsequent years.

    Trump and the 2020 election

    Trump said people claim they want to run against him even though, he claimed, he won the 2020 election. He said, “I won the second election, OK, won it by a lot. You know, when they say, when they say Biden won, the smart people know that didn’t [happen].”

    Facts First: This is Trump’s regular lie. He lost the 2020 election to Biden fair and square, 306 to 232 in the Electoral College. Biden earned more than 7 million more votes than Trump did.

    Democrats and elections

    Trump said Democrats are only good at “disinformation” and “cheating on elections.”

    Facts First: This is nonsense. There is just no basis for a broad claim that Democrats are election cheaters. Election fraud and voter fraud are exceedingly rare in US elections, though such crimes are occasionally committed by officials and supporters of both parties. (We’ll ignore Trump’s subjective claim about “disinformation.”)

    The liberation of the ISIS caliphate

    Trump repeated his familiar story about how he had supposedly liberated the “caliphate” of terror group ISIS in “three weeks.” This time, he said, “In fact, with the ISIS caliphate, a certain general said it could only be done in three years, ‘and probably it can’t be done at all, sir.’ And I did it in three weeks. I went over to Iraq, met a great general. ‘Sir, I can do it in three weeks.’ You’ve heard that story. ‘I can do it in three weeks, sir.’ ‘How are you going to do that?’ They explained it. I did it in three weeks. I was told it couldn’t be done at all, that it would take at least three years. Did it in three weeks. Knocked out 100% of the ISIS caliphate.”

    Facts First: Trump’s claim of eliminating the ISIS caliphate in “three weeks” isn’t true; the ISIS “caliphate” was declared fully liberated more than two years into Trump’s presidency, in 2019. Even if Trump was starting the clock at the time of his visit to Iraq, in late December 2018, the liberation was proclaimed more than two and a half months later. In addition, Trump gave himself far too much credit for the defeat of the caliphate, as he has in the past, when he said “I did it”: Kurdish forces did much of the ground fighting, and there was major progress against the caliphate under President Barack Obama in 2015 and 2016.

    IHS Markit, an information company that studied the changing size of the caliphate, reported two days before Trump’s 2017 inauguration that the caliphate shrunk by 23% in 2016 after shrinking by 14% in 2015. “The Islamic State suffered unprecedented territorial losses in 2016, including key areas vital for the group’s governance project,” an analyst there said in a statement at the time.

    Military equipment left in Afghanistan

    Trump claimed, as he has before, that the US left behind $85 billion worth of military equipment when it withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021. He said of the leader of the Taliban: “Now he’s got $85 billion worth of our equipment that I bought – $85 billion.” He added later: “The thing that nobody ever talks about, we lost 13 [soldiers], we lost $85 billion worth of the greatest military equipment in the world.”

    Facts First: Trump’s $85 billion figure is false. While a significant quantity of military equipment that had been provided by the US to Afghan government forces was indeed abandoned to the Taliban upon the US withdrawal, the Defense Department has estimated that this equipment had been worth about $7.1 billion – a chunk of about $18.6 billion worth of equipment provided to Afghan forces between 2005 and 2021. And some of the equipment left behind was rendered inoperable before US forces withdrew.

    As other fact-checkers have previously explained, the “$85 billion” is a rounded-up figure (it’s closer to $83 billion) for the total amount of money Congress has appropriated during the war to a fund supporting the Afghan security forces. A minority of this funding was for equipment.

    The Afghanistan withdrawal and the F-16

    Trump claimed that the Taliban acquired F-16 fighter planes because of the US withdrawal, saying: “They feared the F-16s. And now they own them. Think of it.”

    Facts First: This is false. F-16s were not among the equipment abandoned upon the US withdrawal and the collapse of the Afghan armed forces, since the Afghan armed forces did not fly F-16s.

    The border wall

    Trump claimed that he had kept his promise to complete a wall on the border with Mexico: “As you know, I built hundreds of miles of wall and completed that task as promised. And then I began to add even more in areas that seemed to be allowing a lot of people to come in.”

    Facts First: It’s not true that Trump “completed” the border wall. According to an official “Border Wall Status” report written by US Customs and Border Protection two days after Trump left office, about 458 miles of wall had been completed under Trump – but about 280 more miles that had been identified for wall construction had not been completed.

    The report, provided to CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez, said that, of those 280 miles left to go, about 74 miles were “in the pre-construction phase and have not yet been awarded, in locations where no barriers currently exist,” and that 206 miles were “currently under contract, in place of dilapidated and outdated designs and in locations where no barriers previously existed.”

    Latin America and deportations

    Trump told his familiar story about how, until he was president, the US was unable to deport MS-13 gang members to other countries, “especially” Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras because those countries “didn’t want them.”

    Facts First: It’s not true that, as a rule, Guatemala and Honduras wouldn’t take back migrants being deported from the US during Obama’s administration, though there were some individual exceptions.

    In 2016, just prior to Trump’s presidency, neither Guatemala nor Honduras was on the list of countries that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) considered “recalcitrant,” or uncooperative, in accepting the return of their nationals.

    For the 2016 fiscal year, Obama’s last full fiscal year in office, ICE reported that Guatemala and Honduras ranked second and third, behind only Mexico, in terms of the country of citizenship of people being removed from the US. You can read a longer fact check, from 2019, here.

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  • Fire rips through Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh leaving thousands homeless | CNN

    Fire rips through Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh leaving thousands homeless | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A massive fire has ripped through a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh’s southern district of Cox’s Bazar on Sunday, leaving around 12,000 people homeless, local Superintendent of Police Mohammad Mahfuzul Islam told CNN.

    Sweeping through the Kutupalong refugee camp in the afternoon, the blaze gutted around 2,000 huts before it was brought under control, Islam said.

    No casualties have been reported so far, he said, adding that the cause of the fire is not yet determined but an investigation is under way.

    Authorities are working with international and local humanitarian organizations to provide food and temporary shelters to those who have lost homes, he added.

    “We will ensure no one sleeps under the open sky. Everyone will get a temporary shelter,” Islam said, with community centers and mosques providing housing to those affected by the fire.

    Ninety facilities including hospitals and learning centers were burnt down, the Bangladesh branch of the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR tweeted on Sunday.

    “Rohingya refugee volunteers trained on firefighting & local fire services have controlled the fire,” it added in another tweet.

    Rohingya refugees try to salvage their belongings after the major fire ripped through the camp.

    The UN’s International Organization of Migration (IOM) in Bangladesh said on social media that “they are assessing the needs of people to provide support.”

    Sunday’s fire marks one of the largest of several fires that have plagued the camp in recent years.

    An estimated 1 million members of the stateless Muslim minority Rohingya live in what many consider to be among the world’s largest refugee camps after fleeing a brutal campaign of killing and arson by the Myanmar military.

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  • Fact check: Republicans at CPAC make false claims about Biden, Zelensky, the FBI and children | CNN Politics

    Fact check: Republicans at CPAC make false claims about Biden, Zelensky, the FBI and children | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    The Conservative Political Action Conference is underway in Maryland. And the members of Congress, former government officials and conservative personalities who spoke at the conference on Thursday and Friday made false claims about a variety of topics.

    Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio uttered two false claims about President Joe Biden. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia repeated a debunked claim about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama used two inaccurate statistics as he lamented the state of the country. Former Trump White House official Steve Bannon repeated his regular lie about the 2020 election having been stolen from Trump, this time baselesly blaming Fox for Trump’s defeat.

    Rep. Kat Cammack of Florida incorrectly said a former Obama administration official had encouraged people to harass Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina inaccurately claimed Biden had laughed at a grieving mother and inaccurately insinuated that the FBI tipped off the media to its search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida residence. Two other speakers, Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and former Trump administration official Sebastian Gorka, inflated the number of deaths from fentanyl.

    And that’s not all. Here is a fact check of 13 false claims from the conference, which continues on Saturday.

    Marjorie Taylor Greene said the Republican Party has a duty to protect children. Listing supposed threats to children, she said, “Now whether it’s like Zelensky saying he wants our sons and daughters to go die in Ukraine…” Later in her speech, she said, “I will look at a camera and directly tell Zelensky: you’d better leave your hands off of our sons and daughters, because they’re not dying over there.”

    Facts First: Greene’s claim is false. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky didn’t say he wants American sons and daughters to fight or die for Ukraine. The false claim, which was debunked by CNN and others earlier in the week, is based on a viral video that clipped Zelensky’s comments out of context.

    19-second video of Zelensky goes viral. See what was edited out

    In reality, Zelensky predicted at a press conference in late February that if Ukraine loses the war against Russia because it does not receive sufficient support from elsewhere, Russia will proceed to enter North Atlantic Treaty Organization member countries in the Baltics (a region made up of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia) that the US will be obligated to send troops to defend. Under the treaty that governs NATO, an attack on one member is considered an attack on all. Ukraine is not a NATO member, and Zelensky didn’t say Americans should fight there.

    Greene is one of the people who shared the out-of-context video on Twitter this week. You can read a full fact-check, with Zelensky’s complete quote, here.

    Right-wing commentator and former Trump White House chief strategist Steve Bannon criticized right-wing cable channel Fox at length for, he argued, being insufficiently supportive of Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign. Among other things, Bannon claimed that, on the night of the election in November 2020, “Fox News illegitimately called it for the opposition and not Donald J. Trump, of which our nation has never recovered.” Later, he said Trump is running again after “having it stolen, in broad daylight, of which they [Fox] participate in.”

    Facts First: This is nonsense. On election night in 2020, Fox accurately projected that Biden had won the state of Arizona. This projection did not change the outcome of the election; all of the votes are counted regardless of what media outlets have projected, and the counting showed that Biden won Arizona, and the election, fair and square. The 2020 election was not “stolen” from Trump.

    NATIONAL HARBOR, MARYLAND - MARCH 03: Former White House chief strategist for the Trump Administration Steve Bannon speaks during the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the Gaylord National Resort Hotel And Convention Center on March 03, 2023 in National Harbor, Maryland. The annual conservative conference entered its second day of speakers including congressional members, media personalities and members of former President Donald Trump's administration. President Donald Trump will address the event on Saturday. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

    Bannon has a harsh message for Fox News at CPAC

    Fox, like other major media outlets, did not project that Biden had won the presidency until four days later. Fox personalities went on to repeatedly promote lies that the election was stolen from Trump – even as they privately dismissed and mocked these false claims, according to court filings from a voting technology company that is suing Fox for defamation.

    Rep. Jim Jordan claimed that Biden, “on day one,” made “three key changes” to immigration policy. Jordan said one of those changes was this: “We’re not going to deport anyone who come.” He proceeded to argue that people knowing “we’re not going to get deported” was a reason they decided to migrate to the US under Biden.

    Facts First: Jordan inaccurately described the 100-day deportation pause that Biden attempted to impose immediately after he took office on January 20, 2021. The policy did not say the US wouldn’t deport “anyone who comes.” It explicitly did not apply to anyone who arrived in the country after the end of October 2020, meaning people who arrived under the Biden administration or in the last months of the Trump administration could still be deported.

    Biden did say during the 2020 Democratic primary that “no one, no one will be deported at all” in his first 100 days as president. But Jordan claimed that this was the policy Biden actually implemented on his first day in office; Biden’s actual first-day policy was considerably narrower.

    Biden’s attempted 100-day pause also did not apply to people who engaged in or were suspected of terrorism or espionage, were seen to pose a national security risk, had waived their right to remain in the US, or whom the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement determined the law required to be removed.

    The pause was supposed to be in effect while the Department of Homeland Security conducted a review of immigration enforcement practices, but it was blocked by a federal judge shortly after it was announced.

    Rep. Ralph Norman strongly suggested the FBI had tipped off the media to its August search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home and resort in Florida for government documents in the former president’s possession – while concealing its subsequent document searches of properties connected to Biden.

    Norman said: “When I saw the raid at Mar-a-Lago – you know, the cameras, the FBI – and compare that to when they found Biden’s, all of the documents he had, where was the media, where was the FBI? They kept it quiet early on, didn’t let it out. The job of the next president is going to be getting rid of the insiders that are undermining this government, and you’ve gotta clean house.”

    Facts First: Norman’s narrative is false. The FBI did not tip off the media to its search of Mar-a-Lago; CNN reported the next day that the search “happened so quietly, so secretly, that it wasn’t caught on camera at all.” Rather, media outlets belatedly sent cameras to Mar-a-Lago because Peter Schorsch, publisher of the website Florida Politics, learned of the search from non-FBI sources and tweeted about it either after it was over or as it was just concluding, and because Trump himself made a public statement less than 20 minutes later confirming that a search had occurred. Schorsch told CNN on Thursday: “I can, unequivocally, state that the FBI was not one of my two sources which alerted me to the raid.”

    Brian Stelter, then CNN’s chief media correspondent, wrote in his article the day after the search: “By the time local TV news cameras showed up outside the club, there was almost nothing to see. Websites used file photos of the Florida resort since there were no dramatic shots of the search.”

    It’s true that the public didn’t find out until late January about the FBI’s November search of Biden’s former think tank office in Washington, which was conducted with the consent of Biden’s legal team. But the belated presence of journalists at Mar-a-Lago on the day of the Trump search in August is not evidence of a double standard.

    And it’s worth noting that media cameras were on the scene when Biden’s beach home in Delaware was searched by the FBI in February. News outlets had set up a media “pool” to make sure any search there was recorded.

    Sen. Tommy Tuberville, a former college and high school football coach, said, “Going into thousands of kids’ homes and talking to parents every year recruiting, half the kids in this country – I’m not talking about race, I’m just talking about – half the kids in this country have one or no parent. And it’s because of the attack on faith. People are losing faith because, for some reason, because the attack [on] God.”

    Facts First: Tuberville’s claim that half of American children don’t have two parents is incorrect. Official figures from the Census Bureau show that, in 2021, about 70% of US children under the age of 18 lived with two parents and about 65% lived with two married parents.

    About 22% of children lived with only a mother, about 5% with only a father, and about 3% with no parent. But the Census Bureau has explained that even children who are listed as living with only one parent may have a second parent; children are listed as living with only one parent if, for example, one parent is deployed overseas with the military or if their divorced parents share custody of them.

    It is true that the percentage of US children living in households with two parents has been declining for decades. Still, Tuberville’s statistic significantly exaggerated the current situation. His spokesperson told CNN on Thursday that the senator was speaking “anecdotally” from his personal experience meeting with families as a football coach.

    Tuberville claimed that today’s children are being “indoctrinated” in schools by “woke” ideology and critical race theory. He then said, “We don’t teach reading, writing and arithmetic anymore. You know, half the kids in this country, when they graduate – think about this: half the kids in this country, when they graduate, can’t read their diploma.”

    Facts First: This is false. While many Americans do struggle with reading, there is no basis for the claim that “half” of high school graduates can’t read a basic document like a diploma. “Mr. Tuberville does not know what he’s talking about at all,” said Patricia Edwards, a Michigan State University professor of language and literacy who is a past president of the International Literacy Association and the Literacy Research Association. Edwards said there is “no evidence” to support Tuberville’s claim. She also said that people who can’t read at all are highly unlikely to finish high school and that “sometimes politicians embellish information.”

    Tuberville could have accurately said that a significant number of American teenagers and adults have reading trouble, though there is no apparent basis for connecting these struggles with supposed “woke” indoctrination. The organization ProLiteracy pointed CNN to 2017 data that found 23% of Americans age 16 to 65 have “low” literacy skills in English. That’s not “half,” as ProLiteracy pointed out, and it includes people who didn’t graduate from high school and people who are able to read basic text but struggle with more complex literacy tasks.

    The Tuberville spokesperson said the senator was speaking informally after having been briefed on other statistics about Americans’ struggles with reading, like a report that half of adults can’t read a book written at an eighth-grade level.

    Rep. Jim Jordan claimed of Biden: “The president of the United States stood in front of Independence Hall, called half the country fascists.”

    Facts First: This is not true. Biden did not denounce even close to “half the country” in this 2022 speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. He made clear that he was speaking about a minority of Republicans.

    In the speech, in which he never used the word “fascists,” Biden warned that “MAGA Republicans” like Trump are “extreme,” “do not respect the Constitution” and “do not believe in the rule of law.” But he also emphasized that “not every Republican, not even the majority of Republicans, are MAGA Republicans.” In other words, he made clear that he was talking about far less than half of Americans.

    Trump earned fewer than 75 million votes in 2020 in a country of more than 258 million adults, so even a hypothetical criticism of every single Trump voter would not amount to criticism of “half the country.”

    Rep. Scott Perry claimed that “average citizens need to just at some point be willing to acknowledge and accept that every single facet of the federal government is weaponized against every single one of us.” Perry said moments later, “The government doesn’t have the right to tell you that you can’t buy a gas stove but that you must buy an electric vehicle.”

    Facts First: This is nonsense. The federal government has not told people that they can’t buy a gas stove or must buy an electric vehicle.

    The Biden administration has tried to encourage and incentivize the adoption of electric vehicles, but it has not tried to forbid the manufacture or purchase of traditional vehicles with internal combustion engines. Biden has set a goal of electric vehicles making up half of all new vehicles sold in the US by 2030.

    There was a January controversy about a Biden appointee to the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission, Richard Trumka Jr., saying that gas stoves pose a “hidden hazard,” as they emit air pollutants, and that “any option is on the table. Products that can’t be made safe can be banned.” But the commission as a whole has not shown support for a ban, and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at a January press briefing: “The president does not support banning gas stoves. And the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which is independent, is not banning gas stoves.”

    Rep. Ralph Norman claimed that Biden had just laughed at a mother who lost two sons to fentanyl.

    “I don’t know whether y’all saw, I just saw it this morning: Biden laughing at the mother who had two sons – to die, and he’s basically laughing and saying the fentanyl came from the previous administration. Who cares where it came from? The fact is it’s here,” Norman said.

    Facts First: Norman’s claim is false. Biden did not laugh at the mother who lost her sons to fentanyl, the anti-abortion activist Rebecca Kiessling; in a somber tone, he called her “a poor mother who lost two kids to fentanyl.” Rather, he proceeded to laugh about how Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene had baselessly blamed the Biden administration for the young men’s deaths even though the tragedy happened in mid-2020, during the Trump administration. You can watch the video of Biden’s remarks here.

    Kiessling has demanded an apology from Biden. She is entitled to her criticism of Biden’s remarks and his chuckle – but the video clearly shows Norman was wrong when he claimed Biden was “laughing at the mother.”

    Rep. Kat Cammack told a story about the first hearing of the new Republican-led House select subcommittee on the supposed “weaponization” of the federal government. Cammack claimed she had asked a Democratic witness at this February hearing about his “incredibly vitriolic” Twitter feed in which, she claimed, he not only repeatedly criticized Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh but even went “so far as to encourage people to harass this Supreme Court justice.”

    Facts First: This story is false. The witness Cammack questioned in this February exchange at the subcommittee, former Obama administration deputy assistant attorney general Elliot Williams, did not encourage people to harass Kavanaugh. In fact, it’s not even true that Cammack accused him at the February hearing of having encouraged people to harass Kavanaugh. Rather, at the hearing, she merely claimed that Williams had tweeted numerous critical tweets about Kavanaugh but had been “unusually quiet” on Twitter after an alleged assassination attempt against the justice. Clearly, not tweeting about the incident is not the same thing as encouraging harassment.

    Williams, now a CNN legal analyst (he appeared at the subcommittee hearing in his personal capacity), said in a Thursday email that he had “no idea” what Cammack was looking at on his innocuous Twitter feed. He said: “I used to prosecute violent crimes, and clerked for two federal judges. Any suggestion that I’ve ever encouraged harassment of anyone – and particularly any official of the United States – is insulting and not based in reality.”

    Cammack’s spokesperson responded helpfully on Thursday to CNN’s initial queries about the story Cammack told at CPAC, explaining that she was referring to her February exchange with Williams. But the spokesperson stopped responding after CNN asked if Cammack was accurately describing this exchange with Williams and if they had any evidence of Williams actually having encouraged the harassment of Kavanaugh.

    Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana boasted about the state of the country “when Republicans were in charge.” Among other claims about Trump’s tenure, he said that “in four years,” Republicans “delivered 3.5% unemployment” and “created 8 million new jobs.”

    Facts First: This is inaccurate in two ways. First, the economic numbers for the full “four years” of Trump’s tenure are much worse than these numbers Kennedy cited; Kennedy was actually referring to Trump’s first three years while ignoring the fourth, which was marred by the Covid-19 pandemic. Second, there weren’t “8 million new jobs” created even in Trump’s first three years.

    Kennedy could have correctly said there was a 3.5% unemployment rate after three years of the Trump administration, but not after four. The unemployment rate skyrocketed early in Trump’s fourth year, on account of the pandemic, before coming down again, and it was 6.3% when Trump left office in early 2021. (It fell to 3.4% this January under Biden, better than in any month under Trump.)

    And while the economy added about 6.7 million jobs under Trump before the pandemic-related crash of March and April 2020, that’s not the “8 million jobs” Kennedy claimed – and the economy ended up shedding millions of jobs in Trump’s fourth year. Over the full four years of Trump’s tenure, the economy netted a loss of about 2.7 million jobs.

    Lara Trump, Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law and an adviser to his 2020 campaign, claimed that the last time a CPAC crowd was gathered at this venue in Maryland, in February 2020, “We had the lowest unemployment in American history.” After making other boasts about Donald Trump’s presidency, she said, “But how quickly it all changed.” She added, “Under Joe Biden, America is crumbling.”

    Facts First: Lara Trump’s claim about February 2020 having “the lowest unemployment in American history” is false. The unemployment rate was 3.5% at the time – tied for the lowest since 1969, but not the all-time lowest on record, which was 2.5% in 1953. And while Lara Trump didn’t make an explicit claim about unemployment under Biden, it’s not true that things are worse today on this measure; again, the most recent unemployment rate, 3.4% for January 2023, is better than the rate at the time of CPAC’s 2020 conference or at any other time during Donald Trump’s presidency.

    Multiple speakers at CPAC decried the high number of fentanyl overdose deaths. But some of the speakers inflated that number while attacking Biden’s immigration policy.

    Sebastian Gorka, a former Trump administration official, claimed that “in the last 12 months in America, deaths by fentanyl poisoning totaled 110,000 Americans.” He blamed “Biden’s open border” for these deaths.

    Rep. Scott Perry claimed: “Meanwhile over on this side of the border, where there isn’t anybody, they’re running this fentanyl in; it’s killing 100,000 Americans – over 100,000 Americans – a year.”

    Facts First: It’s not true that there are more than 100,000 fentanyl deaths per year. That is the total number of deaths from all drug overdoses in the US; there were 106,699 such deaths in 2021. But the number of overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids other than methadone, primarily fentanyl, is smaller – 70,601 in 2021.

    Fentanyl-related overdoses are clearly a major problem for the country and by far the biggest single contributor to the broader overdose problem. Nonetheless, claims of “110,000” and “over 100,000” fentanyl deaths per year are significant exaggerations. And while the number of overdose deaths and fentanyl-related deaths increased under Biden in 2021, it was also troubling under Trump in 2020 – 91,799 total overdose deaths and 56,516 for synthetic opioids other than methadone.

    It’s also worth noting that fentanyl is largely smuggled in by US citizens through legal ports of entry rather than by migrants sneaking past other parts of the border. Contrary to frequent Republican claims, the border is not “open”; border officers have seized thousands of pounds of fentanyl under Biden.

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  • Children and women among 63 dead as migrant boat hits rocks near Italy | CNN

    Children and women among 63 dead as migrant boat hits rocks near Italy | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    At least 63 people including children and women died after a wooden boat carrying migrants from Turkey broke apart on rocks off the coast of Calabria on Sunday, Italian authorities said.

    More bodies were being pulled from the Mediterranean Sea on Monday, where bad weather hampered search efforts and made the field of debris larger.

    More than two dozen of the dead were Pakistani nationals, the country’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, said Monday. Sharif described the news as “deeply concerning and worrisome” and directed Pakistan’s foreign ministry to investigate.

    At least 82 passengers survived the shipwreck, an official from Italy’s Crotone prefecture said Monday. Among those on board were people from Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan, according to rescuers.

    The vessel left the Turkish city of Izmir three or four days before the wreck, with 140 to 150 people on board, Reuters reported. The first three bodies washed up on the beach near Staccato di Cutro in southern Italy around 4:40 a.m. local time Sunday.

    The full breakdown of migrants by gender and ages who have died were set to be released soon and the total number of people missing had not yet been established, Manuela Curra, prefect of Crotone, told CNN on Monday.

    Some of the migrants who were saved from a deadly shipwreck over the weekend were rescued and warmed by blankets on February 26, 2023.

    Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni blamed human traffickers. “It is criminal to launch a boat just 20 meters long with 200 people on board in adverse weather,” she said in a statement. “It is inhumane to exchange the lives of men, women and children for the price of a ticket under the false perspective of a safe journey.”

    Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi added that new measures must be instituted to reduce such perilous journeys. “It is essential to continue with every possible initiative to stop departures and discourage crossings in any way which takes advantage of the illusory mirage of a better life,” he said in a statement.

    Meloni made stopping migrant boats a priority of her hard-right government. This week parliament approved new laws making it more difficult for NGOs to carry out rescues.

    In Vatican City on Sunday, in reference to the victims of the shipwreck, Pope Francis said: “I pray for each of them, for the missing, and for the other migrants who survived. I thank those who are helping them and those who are giving them assistance. May the Virgin Mary help these brothers and sisters.”

    Police officers standing at the beach where bodies were found. One survivor has been arrested on migrant trafficking charges.

    UNHCR records show that 11,874 people have arrived in Italy so far in 2023 by sea, with 678 of them arriving at Calabria.

    Typically, arrivals are from African countries, rather than the Middle East and Asia, with the majority of boats setting off from Libya.

    Only 8.3% of arrivals are from Pakistan, 6.7% from Afghanistan and 0.7% from Iran. The rest are primarily from Africa, with 17.3% of arrivals from Ivory Coast alone, 13.1% from Guinea. Other African nations, including North African countries, make up most of the rest.

    The most deadly migration route is the Central Mediterranean route, where at least 20,334 people have died since 2014, according to the International Organization for Migration’s Missing Migrants Project.

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  • Mexico rethinks asylum initiative after controversial US announcement | CNN

    Mexico rethinks asylum initiative after controversial US announcement | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Mexico is rethinking its approach toward asylum seekers after the Biden administration unveiled a controversial new proposal to limit asylum eligibility in the United States.

    Mexico’s refugee assistance agency, known as COMAR, launched a pilot program in southern Mexico on Monday to explore expediting asylum denials to those it deems likely to travel onward to the US.

    The aim is to deter those migrants from accessing temporary documents issued by COMAR while their cases are being evaluated, which they might use to travel north – a common phenomenon, according to COMAR’s head Andrés Ramírez.

    But after the Biden administration announced its proposed new asylum rules on Tuesday, COMAR plans to abandon the strategy and use what it learned from the pilot program to come up with a different solution, Ramírez said.

    The US proposal – which has been panned by human rights advocates and immigration experts – largely bars migrants who have not taken a legal pathway and instead traveled through other countries on their way to the US southern border from applying for asylum in the US. It would take effect in May.

    Among its proposed new conditions on eligibility for US asylum: being denied protection in a third country through which they traveled.

    Ramírez now worries that accelerating asylum denials could actually increase Mexico’s attractiveness as a pit stop for those ultimately aiming to request asylum in the US.

    “The new policy that was recently announced [by the United States] changes the whole thing. We need to rethink it,” Ramírez said.

    Migrant numbers at the US-Mexico border have been on the rise since last year, with increasing numbers of people from Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Colombia – many fleeing repressive government and stark economic pressures.

    Though the one-week pilot program did not include actually issuing swift denials, it studied behaviors of individuals from nationalities deemed by COMAR most likely to be traveling for economic reasons rather than for international protection – Senegalese and Angolan migrants in particular, according to Ramírez.

    By Mexican law, asylum seekers are required to stay in the state where they filed for asylum to see the process through.

    Once registered with COMAR, asylum seekers are provided with deportation protection, access to the public health care system and work eligibility.

    Ramírez says that his agency recently noticed that many migrants who began the asylum process in the city of Tapachula, in southern Mexico, later abandoned the process. They used a preliminary COMAR document to travel within the country toward its northern border.

    “They are abusing the system,” said Ramírez. “That shows us that many of these people are not really interested in (Mexico’s) refugee system and the asylum procedure.”

    He estimated that in Tapachula, Mexico about 70% of the individuals from countries other than Haiti were abusing the system.

    Haitians, he said, have been continuing with the local asylum process there at a higher rate.

    Mexico has received a surge of asylum applications in recent years, Ramírez says.

    In January 2023, nearly 13,000 people signed up to seek asylum in Mexico, according to COMAR data. That’s more than double the number of asylum registrations from one year ago in January 2022, the data shows.

    If applications continue at this pace, 2023 could be on track to becoming the refugee agency’s busiest year ever.

    The record for most applications ever was set in 2021, he said, when COMAR received nearly 130,000 asylum applications.

    “We were at the risk of collapsing. It was terrible,” Ramírez said.

    His priority now is to figure out a way to prevent the asylum system in Mexico from being overwhelmed, he says.

    After the results of this week’s experiment documenting the behaviors of individuals who likely qualified for expedited denials is analyzed, his team will submit proposals with new solutions to combat what they see as abuses of the system – an approach that Ramírez says will ultimately allow COMAR to prioritize asylum seekers who intend to make Mexico home.

    “For us it’s very important to take care of the asylum system in Mexico,” Ramírez said. “If the asylum system is collapsed, then we’re done.”

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  • British woman who joined ISIS as a teen loses UK citizenship appeal | CNN

    British woman who joined ISIS as a teen loses UK citizenship appeal | CNN

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    London
    CNN
     — 

    Shamima Begum, who left the United Kingdom to join ISIS at the age of 15, has lost her appeal against the decision to revoke her British citizenship.

    Judge Robert Jay gave the decision on Wednesday following a five-day hearing in November, during which her lawyers argued the UK Home Office had a duty to investigate whether she was a victim of trafficking before removing her citizenship.

    The ruling does not determine if Begum can return to Britain, but whether the removal of her citizenship was lawful.

    Begum, now 23 and living in a camp in northern Syria, flew to the country in 2015 with two school friends to join the ISIS terror group. In February 2019, she re-emerged and made international headlines as an “ISIS bride” after pleading with the UK government to be allowed to return to her home country for the birth of her son.

    Family of ISIS victim says YouTube algorithm is liable. What will the Supreme Court say?


    02:30

    – Source:
    CNN Business

    Then-Home Secretary Sajid Javid removed her British citizenship on February 19, 2019, and Begum’s newborn son died in a Syrian refugee camp the following month. She told UK media she had two other children prior to that baby, who also died in Syria during infancy.

    Begum’s lawyers criticized Wednesday’s ruling as a “lost opportunity to put into reverse a profound mistake and a continuing injustice.”

    “The outcome is that there is now no protection for a British child trafficked out of the UK if the home secretary invokes national security,” Gareth Pierce and Daniel Furner, of Birnberg Pierce Solicitors, said in a statement seen by UK news agency PA Media.

    “Begum remains in unlawful, arbitrary and indefinite detention without trial in a Syrian camp. Every possible avenue to challenge this decision will be urgently pursued,” it continued.

    Rights group Amnesty International described the ruling as a “very disappointing decision.”

    “The power to banish a citizen like this simply shouldn’t exist in the modern world, not least when we’re talking about a person who was seriously exploited as a child,” Steve Valdez-Symonds, the group’s UK refugee and migrant rights director, said in a statement.

    “Along with thousands of others, including large numbers of women and children, this young British woman is now trapped in a dangerous refugee camp in a war-torn country and left largely at the mercy of gangs and armed groups.”

    “The home secretary shouldn’t be in the business of exiling British citizens by stripping them of their citizenship,” Valdez-Symonds said.

    Javid, the home secretary who removed Begum’s British citizenship, welcomed Wednesday’s ruling, tweeted that it “upheld my decision to remove an individual’s citizenship on national security grounds.”

    “This is a complex case but home secretaries should have the power to prevent anyone entering our country who is assessed to pose a threat to it.” Javid added.

    Begum has made several public appeals as she fought against the government’s decision, most recently appearing in BBC documentary The Shamima Begum Story and a 10-part BBC podcast series.

    In the podcast series she insisted that she is “not a bad person.” While accepting that the British public viewed her as a “danger” and a “risk,” Begum blamed this on her media portrayal.

    She challenged the UK government’s decision to revoke her citizenship but, in June 2019, the government refused her application to be allowed to enter the country to pursue her appeal.

    In 2020, the UK Court of Appeal ruled Begum should be granted leave to enter the country because otherwise, it would not be “a fair and effective hearing.”

    The following year, the Supreme Court reversed that decision, arguing that the Court of Appeal made four errors when it ruled that Begum should be allowed to return to the UK to carry out her appeal.

    UK police appealed for help Friday, Feb. 20, 2015, to find three teenage girls who are missing from their homes in London and are believed to be making their way to Syria. The girls, two of them 15 and one 16, have not been seen since Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2015, when, police say, they took a flight to Istanbul. One has been named as Shamima Begum, 15, who may be traveling under the name of 17-year-old Aklima Begum, and a second as Kadiza Sultana, 16. The third girl is identified as Amira Abase, 15.

    Shamima Begum loses legal bid to return home to appeal citizenship revocation (February 2021)

    Begum was 15 when she flew out of Gatwick Airport with two classmates and traveled to Syria.

    The teenagers, all from the Bethnal Green Academy in east London, were to join another classmate who had made the same journey months earlier.

    While in Syria, Begum married an ISIS fighter and spent several years living in Raqqa. Begum then reappeared in al-Hawl, a Syrian refugee camp of 39,000 people, in 2019.

    shamima begum sky feb 2019

    With ISIS fall, Europe faces returnees dilemma (February 2019)

    Speaking from the camp before giving birth, Begum told UK newspaper The Times that she wanted to come home to have her child. She said she had already had two other children who died in infancy from malnutrition and illness.

    She gave birth to her son, Jarrah, in al-Hawl in February of that year. The baby’s health quickly deteriorated, and he passed away after being transferred from the camp to the main hospital in al-Hasakah City.

    In response to that news, a British government spokesperson told CNN at the time that “the death of any child is tragic and deeply distressing for the family.”

    But the spokesperson added the UK Foreign Office “has consistently advised against travel to Syria” since 2011.

    Begum pictured at a refugee camp in northern Syria in March 2021.

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  • Dozens dead in migrant shipwreck off Italian coast

    Dozens dead in migrant shipwreck off Italian coast

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    At least 43 migrants drowned on Sunday after the fishing boat on which they were traveling sank off the coast of the Italian region of Calabria.

    According to local authorities, some 250 migrants were crammed aboard the ship, which broke in two about 20 kilometers from the city of Crotone. Over 100 passengers have been rescued, but at least 70 of the people who were aboard the ship remain missing.

    Over the course of the morning, bodies, including those of children and at least one newborn baby, have washed ashore in the resort town of Steccato di Cutro, according to local reports.

    Although the ship’s port of origin was in Turkey, authorities say the majority of the migrants that have been rescued are from Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

    Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said the disaster was “a huge tragedy that demonstrates how necessary it is to oppose the chains of irregular migration,” adding that more needed to be done to clamp down on “unscrupulous smugglers” who, “in order to get rich, organize improvised trips with inadequate boats and in prohibitive conditions.”

    Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni expressed her “deep sorrow” for the shipwreck and pledged to stop irregular sea migration in order to prevent more tragedies. “The government is committed to preventing [migrant] departures, and with them the unfolding of these tragedies,” she said in a statement.

    “It is inhumane to trade the lives of men, women and children for the price of the ‘ticket’ they have paid with the false prospect of a safe journey,” Meloni said.

    Calabrian President Roberto Occhiuto slammed EU authorities for their inaction in addressing the migration crisis and asked “what has the European Union been doing all these years?”

    “Where is Europe when it comes to guaranteeing security and legality?” he asked, adding that regions like his were left on their own to “manage emergencies and mourn the dead.”

    Opposition parties said the tragedy indicated the flaws in Italy’s migration policy. “Condemning only the smugglers, as the center-right is doing now, is hypocrisy,″ said Laura Ferrara, a European Parliament lawmaker from the 5-Star Movement. “The truth is that the EU today does not offer effective alternatives for those who are forced abandon their country of origin; there are no real alternatives to smugglers and traffickers,″ Ferrara said in a statement.

    According to the International Organization for Migration’s Missing Migrants Project, at least 2,366 migrants lost their lives attempting to cross the Mediterranean last year; at least 124 have been reporting missing in its waters since the beginning of this year.

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    Aitor Hernández-Morales

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  • Eye on America: High grocery costs, how fentanyl is seized at the border and more

    Eye on America: High grocery costs, how fentanyl is seized at the border and more

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    Eye on America: High grocery costs, how fentanyl is seized at the border and more – CBS News


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    We go from the market to the farm to find out why the cost of groceries remains high. And we visit San Diego to see how law enforcement is working to stop fentanyl from being smuggled into the country. Watch these stories and more on “Eye on America” with host Michelle Miller.

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  • History repeats itself with anti-China land ownership proposals | CNN Politics

    History repeats itself with anti-China land ownership proposals | CNN Politics

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    A version of this story appeared in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.



    CNN
     — 

    New efforts to bar Chinese citizens and others from owning property in Texas and other states echo the treatment of Asian people in the US more than 100 years ago, when Congress barred them from obtaining citizenship and multiple state laws restricted land ownership.

    • In Virginia, Gov. Glenn Youngkin is expected to sign legislation to bar citizens of countries the State Department has designated as “foreign adversaries” from owning agricultural land. Companies with deep ties to those countries would also be affected. Those countries currently include China, Russia, North Korea and Iran. There are similar proposals in Montana, Wyoming and North Dakota. Foreign owners control a fraction of US farmland, according to the Congressional Research Service.
    • In Texas, a much broader proposal names those countries and bans citizens of them from owning any land whatsoever. The ban would presumably extend to legal immigrants living in the US. That bill is still working its way through the legislature but has the support of Gov. Greg Abbott.

    The Texas proposal in particular specifically recalls a despicable chapter in US history, when so-called Alien Land Laws were passed in numerous states between the 1880s and 1920s to specifically bar Asian people from owning land. The California Alien Land Law was eventually overturned by the Supreme Court in 1952 for violating the 14th Amendment.

    Chinese people were explicitly barred from immigration to the US for generations – from the 1880s, when Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, until that law’s repeal during World War II.

    So few Chinese people were allowed to immigrate for another generation after that until 1965 – 105 per year – that it amounted to a de facto ban.

    As a result, the anti-Asian property laws mostly affected Japanese Americans.

    While the laws did not specifically single out Asians, they were applied to people “ineligible for citizenship.”

    That made the laws specifically apply to Asians since Congress, at the time, allowed citizenship only for immigrants coming from Europe or Africa.

    The most notorious example of Alien Land Laws was in California, which passed multiple versions of these laws over the years, and where Asian immigrants were concentrated.

    One celebrated and yearslong court battle pitted a Japanese immigrant, Jukichi Harada, who found a way around the law by having his children own the house where his family lived in Riverside, California. They were ultimately able to keep the house when a judge ruled in their favor in 1918, but they were later moved to internment camps during World War II because of their Japanese ancestry.

    Today, the Harada House is a National Historic Landmark and a museum.

    I called Madeline Hsu, a history professor and expert in Asian American studies at the University of Texas at Austin, to ask if these new proposals are an example of history repeating itself.

    “It’s definitely sort of reinvocation of kind of what people in Asian American studies would refer to as ‘Yellow Peril’ fearmongering,” she said.

    “There are ways in which it resonates with what happened to Japanese Americans during World War II, where regardless of citizenship, regardless of nativity, they were racially categorized as enemy aliens.”

    Hsu pointed me to an article in the Journal of Southern History by the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley professor Brent Campney that documents fears of a Japanese “invasion” in the Rio Grande Valley more than 100 years ago.

    Campney’s larger argument in studying the treatment of Asian Americans, in this case people of Japanese descent, is that the local discrimination in Texas and also California reverberated back into the growing animosity between Japan and the US leading up to World War II.

    Decades before the US government robbed Japanese Americans of their rights and held them in camps, Campney writes, “white Americans appealed to the same stereotypes and exclusionary impulses used against the Japanese during the internment, exacerbating tensions between Japan and the United States.”

    That’s a historical lesson everyone has an interest in learning as tensions between the US and China grow today. The US military is maneuvering with allies to control China in the Pacific. The US government is focused on making the economy more independent from Chinese manufacturing. There is even talk of banning TikTok, the app popular with young people in the US and owned by a private Chinese company.

    These efforts against a government seep into more problematic territory when they seem to target the many Chinese and ethnic Chinese people who live in the US.

    “Targeting people by nationality is also problematic,” Hsu said. “That’s not a good way of identifying people who are national security risks or who are acting on behalf of a foreign government.”

    She drew a correlation between these new state proposals and former President Donald Trump’s promise to enforce a ban on Muslims traveling to the US. In order to get a plan through the Supreme Court, he instead banned, for a time, travel from certain countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and South America.

    The Texas bill similarly targets specific countries by name and generalizes that all citizens of those countries could be a threat.

    “The only thing it does is it expresses these kinds of gut suspicions and hostility to these countries,” Hsu said.

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  • Mayorkas goes on the offensive as GOP scrutiny builds, says it’s up to Congress to fix immigration system | CNN Politics

    Mayorkas goes on the offensive as GOP scrutiny builds, says it’s up to Congress to fix immigration system | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas pointed the finger back at Congress to fix the country’s broken immigration system and maintained that he will not resign from his post in an new interview with CNN’s Chris Wallace.

    House Republicans, who have been fierce critics of President Joe Biden’s immigration policies, have been moving to build a case against Mayorkas as they consider launching rare impeachment proceedings against a Cabinet secretary.

    “I’m not going to resign,” Mayorkas told CNN’s Chris Wallace on “Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace,” which is now streaming on HBOMax and airs Sunday night at 7 p.m. ET on CNN.

    “I call upon Congress – as the president has done, as this nation has done – to actually fix an immigration system that has been broken for decades,” he added.

    Republican lawmakers have argued that Mayorkas’ claims of having operational control of the border are unfounded and that the record arrests mark a dereliction of duty – two themes that have come up repeatedly in congressional hearings and have been cited as reason to impeach the secretary.

    Ahead of potential proceedings, the Department of Homeland Security is bringing on a private law firm to help with potential impeachment proceedings against Mayorkas.

    “I don’t have any intention of being uncooperative. I have complete confidence in the integrity of our decision making,” Mayorkas told Wallace.

    Over recent weeks, key committee chairman already held two congressional hearings over the Biden administration’s handling of the US-Mexico border. Earlier this month, the House Judiciary Committee, which would have jurisdiction over an impeachment resolution, held its first border-related hearing.

    “These numbers make clear that the Biden administration does not have operational control of the border,” House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan said during a February hearing. “Month after month after month, we have set records for migrants coming into the country and frankly, I think it’s intentional.”

    Pressed by Wallace on what it means for the border to be secure and if it means people aren’t illegally crossing the border, Mayorkas said: “Of course not. By that measure, the border has never been secure, right?”

    Asked again by what measure the border is secure, he said: “There is not a common definition of that. If one looks at the statutory definition, the literal interpretation of the statutory language, if one person successfully evades law enforcement at the border, then we have breached the security of the border.”

    He added: “What our goal is – to achieve operational control of the border, to do everything that we can to support our personnel with the resources, the technology, the policies that really advance the security of the border, and do not come at the cost of the values of our country. And I say that, I say that, because in the prior administration, policies were promulgated, were passed, that did not hew to the values that we hold dear.”

    The Biden administration faces unprecedented movement across the Western Hemisphere that has contributed to a surge of migrants at the border, including more people from different countries, such as Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. The US is largely barred from deporting migrants to Cuba and Venezuela, presenting a unique set of challenges for DHS.

    “The level of migration that has gripped our hemisphere is extraordinary,” Mayorkas said, stressing that Congress needs to pass reform to fix the immigration system, which Republicans and Democrats agree is broken.

    US border authorities encountered migrants more than 2.3 million times along the US-Mexico border in fiscal year 2022, according to US Customs and Border Protection data. Of those, more than 1 million migrants were turned away at the border.

    In early January, the Biden administration expanded a humanitarian parole program to include Haitians, Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, and Cubans to provide a legal pathway for them to enter the US instead of crossing the border. The administration also made those nationalities eligible for Title 42, meaning they can now be turned away by authorities if they don’t apply for the program.

    Since then, there has been a significant decline in migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela crossing the US-Mexico border unlawfully, according to the Department of Homeland Security, which attributed the drop to new border measures.

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  • Migrant crossings at Canadian border skyrocket

    Migrant crossings at Canadian border skyrocket

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    Migrant crossings at Canadian border skyrocket – CBS News


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    The U.S.-Canada border is seeing a surge of migrants attempting to enter the U.S., despite treacherous, and even deadly conditions. CBS Minnesota reporter John Lauritsen has the details.

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  • Migrants seeking US sponsors find questionable offers online

    Migrants seeking US sponsors find questionable offers online

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    Pedro Yudel Bruzon was looking for someone in the U.S. to support his effort to seek asylum when he landed on a Facebook page filled with posts demanding up to $10,000 for a financial sponsor.

    It’s part of an underground market that’s emerged since the Biden administration announced it would accept 30,000 immigrants each month arriving by air from Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Haiti. Applicants for the humanitarian parole program need someone in the U.S., often a friend or relative, to promise to provide financial support for at least two years.

    Bruzon, who lives in Cuba, doesn’t know anyone who can do that, so he searched online. But he also doesn’t have the money to pay for a sponsor and isn’t sure the offers — or those making them — are real. He worries about being exploited or falling prey to a scam.

    “They call it humanitarian parole, but it has nothing to do with being humanitarian,” said Bruzon, who said he struggles to feed himself and his mother with what he makes as a 33-year-old Havana security guard. “Everyone wants money, even people in the same family.”

    It’s unclear how many people in the United States may have charged migrants to sponsor them, but Facebook groups with names like “Sponsors U.S.” carry dozens of posts offering and seeking financial supporters.

    Several immigration attorneys said they could find no specific law prohibiting people from charging money to sponsor beneficiaries.

    “As long as everything is accurate on the form and there are no fraudulent statements it may be legal,” said lawyer Taylor Levy, who long worked along the border around El Paso, Texas. “But what worries me are the risks in terms of being trafficked and exploited. If lying is involved, it could be fraud.”

    Also, she noted, it “seems counterintuitive” to pay someone to promise to provide financial support.

    Attorney Leon Fresco, a former top aide to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, said charging to be a sponsor is a “gray area” and the U.S. should send a forceful message against the practice.

    Kennji Kizuka, an attorney and director of asylum policy for the International Rescue Committee, which resettles newcomers in the United States, said this type of thing happens with every new U.S. program benefitting migrants.

    “It looks like some are just going to take people’s money and the people are going to get nothing in return,” Kizuka said.

    Levy said such exploitation surrounding a similar U.S. program for Ukrainians prompted the government to publish an online guide about how to spot and protect against human-trafficking schemes.

    One common scheme with immigration programs is known as notario fraud and involves people who call themselves “notarios públicos” charging large sums. In Latin America, the term refers to attorneys with special credentials, leading lead migrants to believe they are lawyers who can provide legal advice. In the U.S., notaries public are merely empowered to witness the signing of legal documents and issue oaths.

    In another scheme, someone poses as a U.S. official asking for money. The U.S. government notes: “We do not accept Western Union, MoneyGram, PayPal, or gift cards as payment for immigration fees.”

    U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services warns about potential scams with the humanitarian parole program for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans that was rolled out last month and notes online that the program is free.

    “Fulfilling our humanitarian mission while upholding the integrity of the immigration system is a top priority for USCIS,” the agency said in response to questions about the potential for exploitation. It says the agency “carefully vets every prospective supporter through a series of fraud- and security-based screening measures.”

    “Additionally, USCIS thoroughly reviews each reported case of fraud or misconduct and may refer those cases to federal law enforcement for additional investigation,” the statement said.

    The agency did not address whether any application has been rejected because of concerns that potential sponsors might be requesting money.

    The Department of Homeland Security says 1,700 humanitarian parole applications were accepted as of Jan. 25 from Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans, plus an undisclosed number of Venezuelans. A Texas-led lawsuit seeks to stop the program, which could allow 360,000 people a year to enter the U.S. legally.

    One Facebook post advertising paid sponsorships led to a person who identified himself as an American citizen living in Pensacola, Florida. Told he was communicating with a journalist, the person refused to talk on the phone and would only text.

    The person told The Associated Press he had sponsored a Cuban uncle and aunt for $10,000 each. He refused to provide contact information for those relatives, then stopped responding to questions.

    Another would-be sponsor said via Facebook messenger that they charge $2,000 per person, which includes a sponsorship fee, document processing and an airline ticket. Requests for more information were answered with a phone number from the Dominican Republic that rang unanswered.

    A man who posted seeking a sponsor told the AP that he was disturbed by some offers.

    “It’s very easy to trick a desperate person and there are an abundance of them here,” the man, who identified himself as Pedro Manuel Carmenate, of Havana, said. “You just have to tell the people what they want to hear.”

    Of course, not all sponsors charge a fee. A new initiative called Welcome.US aims to match Americans to migrants without supporters. Also, nonprofit organizations are trying to spread accurate information about the program.

    Sarah Ivory, executive director of the nonprofit USAHello that provides online information in multiple languages, said the proliferation of offers for paid sponsorship is “deeply troubling and frustratingly predictable,” reflected in hundreds of queries to the group.

    “Many report that they barely have the money to feed themselves, much less pay to get a passport or arrange a sponsor,” Ivory said.

    Such desperation is reflected on social media.

    “I’m looking for a sponsor for two people please, my husband is in a wheelchair,” reads a post from someone who says she lives in Havana. “I will give my house with everything inside and I’ll pay $4,000 for each” person sponsored.

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  • How Immigrants Help Tech Businesses Grow

    How Immigrants Help Tech Businesses Grow

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    In almost every country, immigration is a contentious issue, particularly as it affects the economy. On one side of the debate, detractors argue that too much can saturate job markets and depress wages, while on the other side are those who point to falling birth rates in developed countries and to the need for labor in sectors with increasing worker shortages.

    Here in Canada, we’ve been for years fairly liberal about allowing immigration. According to Statista, just shy of 493,000 people arrived here legally between July 1, 2021 and June 30, 2022. And the results of a 2022 poll by Research Co. indicate that three-quarters of Canadians see their arrival and contributions to the economy as a net positive.

    As a CEO heavily involved with the technology sector, I couldn’t agree more. The reality is that immigrants are critical to economic growth, particularly in this sector, and I’m not the only one saying so. Canada is in the midst of a mini tech boom right now, due in large part to the paralysis of the immigration system of our immediate neighbor to the south.

    Here’s a look at why technology leaders should consider transforming themselves into immigration advocates if they desire sustainable growth.

    Related: Immigrant Business Owners Are the Key to Supercharging America’s Economy

    The view from up north

    In 2017, Canada’s immigration process was revamped — its goal bringing in highly-skilled technology workers from abroad. As part of the country’s Global Skills Strategy, our government significantly shortened the visa process for these workers, from ten weeks to just two. Additionally, some were given a generous work permit exemption period so they could start working immediately, even while their paperwork was being processed. Moreover, Canada has a Start-Up Visa program that enables immigrant entrepreneurs to live and work here, provided they have secured funding from venture capital funds, angel investor groups or business incubators.

    These policy changes made it possible for tech startups to attract the talent they needed to thrive at an accelerated rate. As a result, there are now at least 61 privately held and Canadian-founded technology firms on a path to earning $1 billion in annual revenue.

    They’re not alone, either: Major U.S.-based tech firms have noticed this success and hurried up north to become a part of it. One by one, companies like Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft and Meta opened new offices or expanded their presence here. Such startup activity and expansions have made Toronto the fastest-growing tech hub in North America, trailing only New York and Silicon Valley for total sector activity…for now. And venture capitalists have noticed, too, driving tech investment activity here from $5.8 billion in 2019 to $13.6 billion in 2021, according to PitchBook.

    This growth is partly due to government investment and favorable immigration policies, but also because of the lower cost of talent. Hired reports that the average tech salary in the U.S. is $152,463, whereas in Toronto it’s around $117,000. For small companies, this can make a massive difference. For instance, in the growing app development market, the average Canadian app developer earns around CAD 126,370, which is 4% lower than the U.S. national average. This makes Canada a desirable destination for both investors and skilled workers looking to join a start-up ecosystem.

    Related: Increased Demand for Immigration to the United States

    Effects of immigrants on tech sector growth

    Of course, it would be all too easy to write off Canada’s tech expansion as a function of that sector’s cyclical nature. After all, Toronto isn’t the first city to host such a boom. A few years back, everyone dubbed Miami the next big hub. Before that it was Austin. However, there’s good reason to assess what’s going on in Canada as something beyond cyclical.

    First of all, it’s no coincidence that growth started within months of the visa program revamp. The truth is that Canada simply doesn’t have the workforce to support what’s happening without high-skilled immigrants, and resulting growth mirrored what happened in the U.S. during its innovation booms.

    It’s also important to remember that growth in the U.S. technology sector was also largely the work of newcomers to the country. Steve Jobs was the son of Syrian immigrants, and Google co-founder Sergey Brin is himself a refugee — to name just a very, very few. And research from the National Foundation for American Policy indicates that 80% of tech unicorns in the U.S. were either founded by immigrants or rely on them for key management roles. In other words, these people drive tech innovation and growth, period.

    Related: In a Land of Entrepreneurs: Is America Doing Enough for Refugees and Immigrants?

    Innovation requires diverse experience

    The broad takeaway here is that leaders in the technology sector must start to speak up and advocate for smarter immigration policies, wherever they’re based. To not do so is to deprive companies of the very lifeblood of innovation, and all they need to do is to look at what’s happening here in Canada to see how such efforts pay off.

    The simple fact is that immigrants offer tech firms the only viable way to keep talent pipelines full and bottom lines growing. That means it’s incumbent on leaders and CEOs to look for ways to use their influence to shape associated governmental debate. Or, they could keep letting Canada eat their lunch. We are quite polite here in the True North but are not about to turn down a talent bounty provided by the inaction of others.

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    Chris Porteous

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  • Police arrest three after protest at asylum seeker hotel in England | CNN

    Police arrest three after protest at asylum seeker hotel in England | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Police in the northern England town of Knowsley, Merseyside, arrested three people on Friday after violence broke out during a protest outside a hotel used to house asylum seekers.

    Merseyside Police said those arrested were being held “on suspicion of violent disorder and taken to police stations to be questioned.”

    The protest, sparked by a video filmed near the hotel, had started peacefully, police said, but the situation later became tense and projectiles were thrown at the officers.

    Videos shared online Friday from the area appeared to show officers in riot gear with large shields and a police vehicle set ablaze.

    The police said they were dealing with two groups of protesters after a demonstration descended into chaos outside the Suites Hotel in Ribblers Lane.

    Care4Calais, a refugee charity, tweeted: “The far right have split into three groups and surrounded us at the hotel. The police don’t have the capacity to cover all three groups.”

    Clare Moseley, founder of Care4Calais, told the UK Press Association news agency that she “was among 100 to 120 people from pro-migrant groups who went to the scene in reaction to the protest to show support for the asylum seekers.”

    “I’m trying to get in touch with some of the poor men in that hotel, I can only imagine how frightened they are. It was like a war zone,” she told the PA on Friday.

    Assistant Chief Constable Paul White of Merseyside Police said in a statement: “We will always respect the right to protest when these are peaceful, but the scenes tonight were completely unacceptable, putting those present, our officers and the wider community in danger.”

    “Thankfully we have not had any serious injuries reported up to this point, but for officers and police vehicles to be damaged in the course of their duty protecting the public is disgraceful,” he said.

    “We have arrested some of those suspects and will continue without hesitation to review all and any evidence which comes in, through CCTV, images or other information you may have,” he added.

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  • Court agrees to revisit case on program shielding over 300,000 immigrants from deportation

    Court agrees to revisit case on program shielding over 300,000 immigrants from deportation

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    Washington — A federal appeals court on Friday decided to revisit a case that could decide the fate of more than 300,000 immigrants living in the U.S. legally on humanitarian grounds, setting aside a ruling that had allowed the government to revoke their temporary legal status.

    The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals voided a 2020 ruling issued by a three-judge panel in the California-based appeals court that had allowed the Trump administration to terminate the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) of hundreds of thousands of immigrants from El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua and Sudan.

    Granting a request by attorneys representing immigrants enrolled in the TPS programs, the appeals court said it would hear the case once more, this time “en banc,” or with all active judges participating. It’s unclear though when the 9th Circuit could rule on the case again.

    US-IMMIGRATION-PROTEST
    Immigrant rights activists and those with Temporary Protected Status march near the White House in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 23, 2022.

    OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images


    Friday’s ruling is a victory, at least in the near-term, for TPS holders and their advocates, who have urged Congress for years to allow those enrolled in the program to apply for permanent U.S. residency. 

    The decision is also the latest development in a complicated, years-long legal battle over the TPS policy, which allows the Department of Homeland Security to give deportation protections and work permits to immigrants from countries beset by war, environmental disasters or other humanitarian crises.

    As part of its efforts to curtail humanitarian immigration policies, the Trump administration tried to end multiple TPS programs, arguing that the authority had long been abused by other administrations.  

    A federal judge in 2018 barred the Trump administration from ending the TPS programs for El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua and Sudan, saying officials had not properly justified the decision, and that the terminations raised “serious questions” about whether they stemmed from animus against non-White immigrants. 

    In 2020, a three-judge panel of 9th Circuit judges set aside the lower court ruling, saying courts could not second guess the federal government’s TPS decisions. The panel also said it did not find a direct link between then-President Donald Trump’s disparaging comments about non-White immigrants, and the TPS terminations.

    That ruling, however, never took effect because attorneys representing TPS holders asked for the case to be reheard. The litigation became connected with another lawsuit filed against the Trump administration’s efforts to end TPS for Nepal and Honduras, and the government agreed it would not terminate those policies until it was allowed to revoke the programs for El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua and Sudan.

    Starting in 2021, the case was paused for more than a year as the Biden administration entered negotiations with lawyers for TPS holders to try to forge a deal to settle the case, including by potentially giving the immigrants in question a path to permanent status.

    But those negotiations collapsed in October 2022, fueling concerns that TPS holders from the affected countries could lose their legal status and be forced to leave the U.S., or remain in the country without authorization.

    In November, the Biden administration announced it would allow immigrants at the center of the case to keep their work permits and deportation protections at least one full year after the government is allowed to end the TPS programs in question, or until June 30, 2024 — whichever date comes later.

    The Biden administration has taken a drastically different position on TPS than the Trump administration. It has created TPS designations for a record number of countries, including Afghanistan, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ukraine and Venezuela, making hundreds of thousands of immigrants eligible for the temporary legal status.

    The administration has also announced extensions of the TPS programs for Haitian and Sudanese immigrants living in the U.S., but it has not announced similar moves for immigrants from El Salvador, Nicaragua, Nepal and Honduras, despite requests from advocates.

    Ahilan Arulanantham, the lead lawyer representing TPS holders, and co-director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law, said the Biden administration can announce new programs for these countries to ensure the fate of his clients is not dictated by court rulings. 

    “We are pleased that the Ninth Circuit has agreed to rehear this case,” Arulanantham said. “But we should never have gotten to this point. President Biden had — and still has — every opportunity to fulfill his promise to protect the TPS-holder community.” 

    As of the end of 2021, 241,699 Salvadorans, 76,737 Hondurans, 14,556 Nepalis and 4,250 Nicaraguans were enrolled in the TPS program, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) data.

    TPS allows beneficiaries to live and work in the country without fear of deportation, but it does not provide them a path to permanent residency or citizenship. Those who lose their TPS protections could become eligible for deportation, unless they apply for, and are granted, another immigration benefit.

    Camilo Montoya-Galvez


    screen-shot-2022-12-06-at-11-01-10-pm.png

    Camilo Montoya-Galvez is the immigration reporter at CBS News. Based in Washington, he covers immigration policy and politics.

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  • Training Individuals to Work in their Communities to Reduce Health Disparities

    Training Individuals to Work in their Communities to Reduce Health Disparities

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    Newswise — Community health workers were trusted messengers, disseminating health information in underserved communities during the COVID-19 pandemic, and playing a vital role in reducing health disparities. 

    This form of outreach is the basis of a newly launched academic-community partnership, led by the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science at University of California San Diego and is funded by a $3-million Health Resources and Services Administration grant, that aims to train 200 individuals from refugee, immigrant, and Native American populations living in San Diego County to become community health workers on key health topics disproportionately affecting their communities.

    “COVID-19 highlighted the need for individuals with culturally and linguistically competent skills to be engaged as community health workers within their own neighborhoods. At the urging of our community collaborators to design a certified training program, I felt responsibility to take that role and address health disparity that is negatively impacting these communities,” said Wael Al-Delaimy, M.D., Ph.D., professor at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science, who is bilingual and an immigrant from the Middle East.

    Nationally, San Diego is the second largest hub for immigrants from the Middle East and Somalia, two populations targeted by this program.

    Al-Deliamy is the director of the newly funded initiative titled Community Health Workers for Advancing Public Health within Immigrant/Refugee and Native American Communities Program (CHWAP), which is a collaboration with the UC San Diego Division of Extended Studies, UC San Diego Altman Clinical and Translational Research Institute (ACTRI) Center for Community Health, Somali Family Service of San Diego, and more than 14 community organization partners.

    The program will provide all-expenses paid training that will be held in combination of community settings, at the UC San Diego campus, and online.

    Somali Family Service will recruit trainees from underserved communities and will provide additional services including transportation, childcare, mentorship and career services such as resume writing and cover letter development workshops. It will also assist participants to find living wage jobs.

    “It is important for community members to access trusted messengers equipped with the capacity to holistically relate and respond to their needs and concerns while providing valuable and impactful services and solutions,” said Ahmed Sahid, president and CEO of Somali Family Service of San Diego.

    “The Community Health Workers for Advancing Public Health within Immigrant/Refugee and Native American Communities Program significantly bolsters our community health workers’ efforts by ensuring they receive the training, tools and support necessary to uplift underserved and vulnerable communities.”

    Community health workers are not medical or public health professionals. They are individuals who bridge culture, language and life experiences with public health, health care and the needs of the community in which they live.

    The Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health competed and was selected to become part of a national network to develop capacity in training 13,000 community health workers through a $225 million HRSA program under the directive of the White House.

    UC San Diego Division of Extended Studies will oversee the academic components of CHWAP, providing access to world-class training in health support, soft skills development, and leadership and self-care.  

    “We hope to train as many as 200 new community health workers over the next three years and are honored to work with the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science and our community partners to ensure a talented and diverse public health workforce and reduce healthcare disparities in our region,” said Laura B. Fandino, J.D., Ph.D., assistant dean of academic affairs, Division of Extended Studies. 

    Among the community organizations helping to recruit community health workers is the San Diego Refugee Communities Coalition, a collective of ethnic-community based organizations in San Diego County with a history of serving thousands of underserved refugee families and residents. The ACTRI Center for Community Health Refugee Health Unit serves as the backbone organization for the coalition.

    CHWAP will provide an opportunity for expanded workforce development within refugee and underserved communities to improve access to health resources in a way that was unavailable prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, said Blanca Meléndrez, executive director of the ACTRI Center for Community Health and co-director of CHWAP.

    “Community health workers can provide culturally competent, locally relevant services to individuals in their primary language which makes community members more comfortable and open to discussing sensitive topics,” said Amina Sheik-Mohamed, M.P.H., ACTRI Center for Community Health Refugee Health Unit director.

    Chag Lowry, who is of Yurok, Maidu, and Achumawi Native ancestry from California, will be coordinating the program’s outreach and recruitment effort to Native Americans. 

    “Our Native American community suffered health inequity for decades and was hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a welcome effort to build capacity in an effort to address the health equity gap,” said Lowry, administrative director of the California American Indian Tobacco Initiative Evaluation based at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health.

    CHWAP will coordinate job placements and development of an apprenticeship program with hospitals, clinics and regional partners including the San Diego Workforce Partnership, said Eric Hekler, Ph.D., CHWAP co-director and associate dean for community partnerships at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health.

    In addition, CHWAP is collaborating with the California Consortium for Urban Indian Health, the County of San Diego, Health Center Partners of Southern California, the Hospital Association of San Diego and Imperial Counties, and Family Health Centers of San Diego.

    “Part of the mission of the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science is to collaborate with diverse partners to develop community-led health solutions,” said Hekler.  

    “The Community Health Workers for Advancing Public Health within Immigrant/Refugee and Native American Communities Program helps us cultivate our capacity to serve our local communities by training and supporting job placement of people within their neighborhoods as well as influence health inequities.”

    Information about the program and how to enroll is available on the CHWAP website. 

    This program is supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of an award totaling $3 million with no other non-governmental sources. The contents are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by HRSA, HHS, or the United States government. For more information, please visit HRSA.gov

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  • DeSantis feud with Disney enters new phase as Florida lawmakers announce special session next week | CNN Politics

    DeSantis feud with Disney enters new phase as Florida lawmakers announce special session next week | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Florida lawmakers will return to the state Capitol in Tallahassee next week to finalize their efforts to strip the Walt Disney Company of its special governing powers, the latest round of the yearlong feud between Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and the entertainment giant.

    In addition to settling Disney’s future, lawmakers in the GOP-controlled legislature will also consider changes to two other contentious DeSantis priorities – Florida’s new election police force and the state’s migrant transport program – to address legal concerns that have stymied their full impact, according to communications sent to members Friday afternoon by state House and Senate leaders.

    The flurry of action will take place in a special legislative session beginning Monday – just weeks before lawmakers were scheduled to assemble for the state’s annual legislative session. Legislative leaders did not clearly explain why lawmakers were rushing to take on these matters in advance of their regularly scheduled meeting. But DeSantis has already begun to lay out an ambitious agenda for the 60-day regular session beginning in March that could serve as a platform for a potential 2024 presidential campaign announcement later this year.

    If all goes according to the plan from Republican leaders, it could mean a new era is forthcoming for the Reedy Creek Improvement District, the government body created in 1967 that effectively gives Disney, the state’s largest employer, control over the land in and around its central Florida theme parks. DeSantis put Reedy Creek in his sights last year after Disney’s then-CEO, Bob Chapek, publicly criticized a bill to restrict certain classroom instruction of sexual orientation and gender identity that the governor later signed into law. At DeSantis’ demand, lawmakers voted during a special legislative session last April to dissolve Reedy Creek in June 2023.

    But lawmakers left town without a plan to unwind a half-century of Disney control or for how to ensure Orange and Osceola county residents wouldn’t be on the hook for funding Reedy Creek services or its $1 billion in debt. Amid the fallout, Reedy Creek told its bondholders that Florida could not dissolve the district without assuming its debts.

    In the months since signing the bill to end Reedy Creek, DeSantis has repeatedly offered assurances that taxpayers wouldn’t have to pick up the tab.

    Speaking at a news conference earlier this week, DeSantis said it was his intention for the state to assume control of the district.

    “We’re not going to have a corporation controlling its own government; that’s going to be reverted to the state,” he said. “Disney will not have governing self-governing status anymore. We’re going to make sure that there are no special legal privileges … and then making sure they’re paying their fair share of taxes and paying the debt.”

    As of Friday afternoon, the legislative framework to accomplish that had not been filed with the state. A spokesman for DeSantis did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but House and Senate leaders said they were coordinating with the governor’s office.

    CNN has reached out to Disney’s corporate headquarters for comment.

    Florida lawmakers at the special session will also consider allowing the DeSantis administration to transport migrants from anywhere in the United States, a significant expansion of a program that gained national attention last year after Florida paid for two flights that carried migrants from San Antonio, Texas, to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. However, the program has stalled amid legal challenges over whether the DeSantis administration violated a state law limiting the transport to migrants from Florida.

    The change, if approved, could lift a significant legal hurdle that may allow the DeSantis administration to continue operating flights transporting migrants from border states to Democratic-leaning jurisdictions. The program appears to have gone dark since the September flights to Martha’s Vineyard. In his budget proposal released this week, DeSantis indicated that transporting migrants continues to be a priority of his immigration agenda, allocating $12 million for its continuation into 2024.

    According to a letter from Florida House Speaker Paul Renner’s office, the state House and Senate will consider giving DeSantis’ controversial new Office of Elections Crimes and Security the jurisdiction to prosecute crimes involving elections. The proposal comes after DeSantis initiated a crackdown on voter fraud that resulted in the arrest of 20 individuals but hit a legal snag when a judge dismissed a case against a Miami defendant on the grounds that state prosecutors had acted beyond their authority.

    The agenda for next week will reprise some of the most attention-grabbing actions from DeSantis’ first term as governor. The feud with Disney, the migrant flights to Martha’s Vineyard and his new election force all thrust the Republican leader into the spotlight throughout 2022, garnering doting coverage from conservative media outlets and provoking widespread condemnation from Democrats in Florida and across the country.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • Traumatized and afraid, Jenin residents are still reeling from Israeli raid | CNN

    Traumatized and afraid, Jenin residents are still reeling from Israeli raid | CNN

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    Jenin, West Bank
    CNN
     — 

    Mohammed Abu al-Hayja was sleeping alongside his wife and two young daughters last month when loud gunfire woke them up. Minutes later, Israeli soldiers rammed down his door and burst through his apartment.

    “They spread through the house in seconds,” 29-year-old al-Hayja told CNN. “Two soldiers came up to me, told me to get up, one told me, ‘Leave your daughter with her mother,’ and then he took me and cuffed my hands behind my back.”

    Al-Hayja’s traumatic run-in with Israeli security forces happened as they carried out what they described as a counterterrorism operation in the center of the Jenin refugee camp on January 26. The building they targeted is just a few meters from his home.

    “The security forces operated to apprehend a terror squad belonging to the Islamic Jihad terror organization,” the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), the Israeli Security Agency and the Israel Border Police said in a joint statement, hours after the raid.

    Ten Palestinians were killed in Jenin, including an elderly woman, according to Palestinian officials. Another Palestinian was killed in what Israel Police called a “violent disturbance” near Jerusalem hours later, making it the deadliest day for Palestinians in the West Bank in over a year, according to CNN records. As violence spiraled in the region, at least seven people were killed and three injured in a shooting near a synagogue in Jerusalem a day later according to Israeli police.

    In Jenin, Al-Hayja recalls the events of January 26 clearly, explaining that after being handcuffed an Israeli soldier took him to the bathroom and made him kneel down, before wrapping a towel around his head.

    Restrained, blindfolded and stuck in his bathroom, al-Hayja then started hearing gunfire from inside his apartment. “I could hear it, and if I concentrated I could hear one of the soldiers talking to my wife,” he says.

    Al-Hayja says he was able to convince the soldiers to let him go to his wife. Still blindfolded, he crawled to his living room, as bullets flew above him.

    Israeli soldiers had removed one of his couches and set up a firing position by the window to provide cover for their units engaging Palestinian gunmen nearby. Using apartments like al-Hayja’s to provide cover fire is “standard operating procedure,” a spokesman for the Israeli military told CNN.

    Mohammed Abu al-Hayja's house, seen from the outside.

    Representatives of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) visited Jenin in the days after the incident and spoke to al-Hayja and his family. “Their children were noticeably traumatized,” Adam Bouloukos, director of UNRWA Affairs in the West Bank told CNN. “This kind of invasion violates not only international law but common decency.”

    As Israeli soldiers fired, the Palestinian gunmen fired back, holes from their bullets dotting the family home’s doors and walls. Al-Hayja showed CNN a bag of spent bullet casings he says the Israeli soldiers left behind. “They fired a crazy number of bullets,” he added.

    While they did, al-Hayja and his wife lay on the floor clutching their young daughters for more than three hours. Their oldest daughter is 2-and-a-half, the youngest 18-months-old. “Honestly, I thought I had maybe 1% chance of making it out alive,” he said.

    Moments later an explosion rocked the apartment. He later found out that Israeli soldiers had mounted a second firing position in his bedroom.

    They sawed off the window bars and fired a rocket at the building the gunmen were in, with scorch marks smudging al-Hayja’s ceiling.

    “I said to myself, we are going to die,” he said.

    From atop al-Hayja’s building, the sprawling Jenin refugee camp spreads toward the horizon and up the hills. What were once temporary tents, is now a more permanent-looking slum of sandstone houses, cobbled on top of each other.

    Down below, lies the building targeted by Israeli soldiers. The structure was so damaged after the raid that local officials decided it was safer to bulldoze it down. On the rubble, people have placed banners with the faces of some of those killed – “martyrs,” they read – and a lone Palestinian flag.

    Abdel-Rahman Macharqa, a paramedic in Jenin, told CNN that he unsuccessfully tried to resuscitate one of the victims on January 26.

    While this operation was one of the deadliest in years, for residents here, such Israeli incursions occur all too often. Posters remembering other people killed in confrontations with Israeli security forces over the years line walls across the neighborhood.

    The IDF says these raids are targeted, aimed at terrorists, and that they open fire when those they are searching for fire at them.

    But people in Jenin see it differently. “The Israelis raid the camp and they fire at anything that moves,” paramedic Abdel-Rahman Macharqa told CNN.

    The 31-year-old has seen multiple gun battles in Jenin and says the situation is becoming increasingly riskier, even for those who save lives, like him.

    “They [Israeli soldiers] have fired at me five times,” Macharqa said. “We don’t feel safe, even in uniform.”

    Bullet holes from the incident mark the walls in the neighborhood.

    An elderly lady walks near the scene of the raid.

    “When we say goodbye to our wives and children to come to work, we know we could become martyrs,” he added.

    Macharqa witnessed part of the raid in Jenin as it unfolded on January 26. The paramedic tried to help one of the three civilians whom Israeli officials say were killed there, along with seven gunmen.

    “They opened fired on him and he was hit three times,” he recalled. Macharqa said he pulled the man away and attempted to resuscitate him, but he died.

    “We deserve to live,” Macharqa said. He feels frustrated, not just by Israeli actions, but also what he sees as the passive attitude and double standards of the international community.

    “Israelis claim he is a terrorist, but Ukrainians, when they defend themselves from the Russian invasion is that terrorism?,” he asked.

    On the day of the raid, Ziad Miri’ee peaked out of his door after he heard gunfire. He saw an Israeli soldier firing through his car to hit a young man from his neighborhood.

    “Our neighbors over there tried to pull him out (of the street),” he said. “The kid died.”

    Miri’ee, 63, says he was one of the Jenin camp’s oldest residents, but he also believes the situation has been getting worse.

    “In 2002, when they raided the camp and bulldozed the houses it was much easier than the three-and-a-half hours of last week’s raid,” he said. At the time, during the second intifada, Israeli forces occupied the camp, destroying around 400 homes.

    “2002 was a child play compared to the incident here last week. We couldn’t step a meter outside the house because the bullets were coming in,” he said.

    Ziad Miri'ee was one of the Jenin camp's first residents.

    A child plays by a window, next to the building that was destroyed.

    Miri’ee believes the situation is bound to get even worse, as frustration with the occupation grows, the lack of future on the horizon is driving more and more young people to join the ranks of militant organizations such as the Islamic Jihad.

    “Yes, there’s more [fighters] from this generation,” he says. “This generation was born into the war.”

    Upstairs from Miri’ee, al-Hayja is still shaken by the traumatic experience. Inside his home there’s no room for bravado, just concern over the safety of his daughters.

    “I don’t interfere or get involved in these things, I just go from my work to my house and it all landed on my head,” he said. “You are in your city and you are not safe, you are in your house and you are not safe.”

    “You are not safe from this occupier who occupies your land” he added. “You are not safe at all.”

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