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Tag: Mexico

  • Migrants flee more countries, regardless of US policies

    Migrants flee more countries, regardless of US policies

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    TIJUANA, Mexico — In 2014, groups of unaccompanied children escaping violence in Central America overwhelmed U.S. border authorities in South Texas. In 2016, thousands of Haitians fled a devastating earthquake and stopped in Tijuana, Mexico, after walking and taking buses through up to 11 countries to the U.S. border.

    In 2018, about 6,000 mostly Guatemalan and Honduran migrants fleeing violence and poverty descended on Tijuana, many of them families with young children sleeping in frigid, rain-soaked parks and streets.

    A Trump-era ban on asylum, granted a brief extension by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on Wednesday, was one of the U.S. policies affecting migrants’ decisions to leave their homes. The last eight years show how an extraordinary convergence of inequality, civil strife and natural disasters also have been prompting millions to leave Latin America, Europe and Africa. Since 2017, the United States has been the world’s top destination for asylum-seekers, according to the United Nations.

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    This is part of an occasional series on how the United States became the world’s top destination for asylum-seekers.

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    Migrants have been denied the right to seek asylum under U.S. and international law 2.5 million times since March 2020 on grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19, an authority known as Title 42. It applies to all nationalities but has fallen disproportionately on people from countries that Mexico takes back, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and, more recently Venezuela, as well as Mexico. Pent-up demand is expected to drive crossings higher when asylum restrictions end.

    When the pandemic hit, nationalities rarely seen at the border grew month after month, from Cuba, Peru, Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia. High costs, strained diplomatic relations and other considerations complicated U.S. efforts to expel people from countries that Mexico wouldn’t take.

    Cubans are fleeing their homes in the largest numbers in six decades to escape economic and political turmoil. Most fly to Nicaragua as tourists and slowly make their way to the U.S. They were the second-largest nationality at the border after Mexicans in October.

    Grissell Matos Prieguez and her husband surrendered to border agents near Eagle, Pass, Texas, Oct. 30, after a 16-day journey through six countries that included buses, motorcycles and taxis and exhausting night walks through bushes and foul-smelling rivers.

    “Throughout all the journey you feel like you are going to die, you don’t trust anybody, nothing,” said Matos, a 34-year-old engineer. “You live in a constant fear, or to be detained and that anything would happen.”

    To pay for the trip from Santiago de Cuba, they sold everything, down to computers and bicycles, and borrowed from relatives in Florida. Their parents and grandparents stayed behind.

    A recent surge that has made El Paso, Texas, the busiest corridor for illegal crossings is made up largely of Nicaraguans, whose government has quashed dissent.

    Haitians who stop in South America, sometimes for years, have been a major presence, most notably when nearly 16,000 camped in the small town of Del Rio, Texas, in September 2021. The Biden administration flew many home but slowed returns amid increasingly brazen attacks by gangs that have grown more powerful since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse last year.

    Migration is often driven by “pull factors” that draw people to a country, such as a relatively strong U.S. economy and an asylum system that takes years to decide a case, encouraging some to come even if they feel unlikely to win. But conditions at home, known as “push factors,” may be as responsible for unprecedented numbers over the last year.

    Looking back, Tijuana attorney and migrant advocate Soraya Vazquez says the Haitian diaspora of 2016 was a turning point.

    “We began to realize that there were massive movements all over, in some places from war, in others from political situations, violence, climate change,” said Vazquez, a San Diego native and former legislative aide in Mexico City. “Many things happened at once but, in the end, men and our governments are responsible.”

    After hosting legal workshops for Haitians in Tijuana, Vazquez helped bring chef Jose Andres’ World Central Kitchen to the city’s migrant shelters for four years. Seeking financial stability, she became Tijuana director of Al Otro Lado, a nonprofit group that reported $4.1 million in revenue in 2020 and was recently named a beneficiary of MacKenzie Scott’s philanthropy.

    “What provoked all of this? Inequality,” Vazquez said over tea in Tijuana’s trendy Cacho neighborhood.

    For decades, Mexicans, largely adult men, went to the U.S. to fill jobs and send money home. But in 2015, the Pew Research Center found more Mexicans returned to Mexico from the U.S. than came since the Great Recession ended.

    Mexicans still made up one of three encounters with U.S. border agents during the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, higher than three years ago but well below the 85% reported in 2011 and the 95% at the turn of the century. And those fleeing are increasingly families trying to escape drug-fueled violence with young children.

    Like clockwork, hundreds cross the border after midnight in Yuma, Arizona, walking through Mexican shrub to surrender to U.S. agents. Many fly to the nearby city of Mexicali after entering Mexico as tourists and take a taxi to the desert. The Border Patrol releases them to the Regional Center for Border Health, a clinic that charters six buses daily to Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.

    The health clinic had shuttled families from more than 140 countries by August, not one from Mexico, said Amanda Aguirre, its executive director.

    Daniel Paz, a Peruvian who surrendered to border agents in Yuma with his wife and 10-year-old in August, had the surprise misfortune of being expelled home without a chance at asylum, unusual even after the Peruvian government began accepting two U.S. charter flights a week.

    Peruvians were stopped more than 9,000 times by U.S. authorities along the Mexican border in October, roughly nine times the same period a year earlier and up from only 12 times the year before.

    Paz is watching developments around Title 42 and considering another attempt after the government of Peruvian President Pedro Castillo was toppled Dec. 7.

    “We’ll see if I’m back in January or February,” he texted Sunday from Lima. “There is no lack of desire.”

    Tijuana’s latest newcomers are Venezuelans, about 300 of whom recently temporarily occupied a city-owned recreational center.

    About 7 million Venezuelans fled since 2014, including nearly 2 million to neighboring Colombia, but only recently started coming to the United States.

    Many Venezuelans gather at Mexico’s asylum office that opened in Tijuana in 2019 and processed more than 3,000 applications in each of the last two years from dozens of countries, led by Haitians and Hondurans.

    Jordy Castillo, 40, said he’d wanted to leave Venezuela for 15 years but didn’t act until friends and family started reaching the United States last year. His three brothers were first in his circle to seek asylum there, even though they knew no one.

    “They found someone who took them in and got settled,” he said.

    ——

    Associated Press writer Gisela Salomon in Miami contributed.

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  • Rule delay makes big EV tax credit possible early next year

    Rule delay makes big EV tax credit possible early next year

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    WASHINGTON — People who want to buy an electric vehicle could get a bigger-than-expected tax credit come Jan. 1 because of a delay by the Treasury Department in drawing up rules for the tax breaks.

    The department said late Monday it won’t finish the rules that govern where battery minerals and parts have to be sourced until sometime in March.

    As a result, it appears that buyers of EVs assembled in North America with batteries made in the U.S., Canada or Mexico will be eligible for a full $7,500 tax credit under the Inflation Reduction Act. The act calls for the batteries’ minerals and parts to also come from North America or a country with a free-trade agreement with the U.S. in order to get the full tax break, but that provision has been temporarily put on hold.

    The auto industry is watching the situation closely, but it could cause a rush to dealers because most, if not all EVs aren’t expected to qualify for the full credit when the rules are all in place.

    Experts say most automakers won’t be able to comply with requirements that the battery components come from North America or a country with a U.S. free-trade agreement. For instance, General Motors already has said that it expects its EVs to get only half the tax credit, or $3,750, until at least 2025.

    So people who buy early next year before the rules are announced could pocket an extra $3,750.

    “I imagine there will be a rush,” on EV dealers to get the extra savings, said Sam Abuelsamid, principal e-mobility analyst with Guidehouse Research.

    In the meantime, Treasury said it will release information by year’s end on the “anticipated direction” of the rules to help automakers identify eligible EVs, the department said in a statement. But the rules won’t be effective until March.

    Other requirements, like new caps on a buyer’s income and price of the EV, will still take effect Jan. 1.

    “It should allow some consumers to get an EV a little bit cheaper than they might have otherwise,” said Chris Harto, a senior policy analyst on transportation and energy for Consumer Reports magazine.

    With a base price of $26,595 including shipping, General Motors’ Chevrolet Bolt hatchback is among the lowest-cost EVs on sale in the U.S. today. A $7,500 tax credit would knock the price down to just over $19,000 — less than the average price of a used vehicle in the U.S. That could bring buyers off the sidelines.

    GM says it’s watching developments with the tax credit rules. “We feel well-positioned, but we’re still waiting on guidance for vehicle eligibility,” spokeswoman Jeannine Ginivan said Tuesday.

    Automakers have criticized the battery sourcing and assembly requirements as complex, hard to trace and unrealistic in the short term, with no EV model sold in the U.S. likely able to qualify right away for the full $7,500 tax credit.

    The law’s aim was in part to reduce U.S. reliance on batteries now predominantly made in China and move supply chains to the U.S. Fifty percent of the battery parts have to be manufactured or assembled in North America, and 40% of battery minerals must come from North America or a country with a U.S. free trade agreement, or recycled in North America. Those percentages rise annually.

    More broadly, U.S. allies including South Korea, the European Union and other countries are also upset, arguing that the new law will disqualify their foreign-made EVs unless or until they can open new American plants, which could take several years.

    The new law continues to require that EVs be assembled in North America, which took effect when President Joe Biden signed the measure in August. Also taking effect on Jan. 1 are new caps that EV sedans must cost $55,000 or less, or under $80,000 for pickup trucks, SUVs and vans. A car buyer must have income of $150,000 or less if single, or $300,000 if filing jointly.

    Abuelsamid said it’s not clear whether someone could order an EV before the rules take effect and still get the full credit. He suspects that people will have a hard time finding EVs, which like other automobiles, are still scarce because the auto industry is having a hard time getting computer chips and other parts to keep factories running.

    Harto said the temporary delay makes sense for the Treasury Department as it sorts out technical issues of minerals extraction and battery component manufacturing for its rule-making. Consumers in the meanwhile can take advantage if they pay heed as well to potential dealer markups, he said.

    “The market for EVs has been supply limited and I don’t see that changing in the next two weeks, so that’s the real risk — that this additional tax credit gets eaten up by dealer markups,” Harto said.

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    Krisher reported from Detroit. Associated Press writer Fatima Hussein contributed to this report.

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  • Mexico plans to ask US for up to $48B for solar projects

    Mexico plans to ask US for up to $48B for solar projects

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    MEXICO CITY — Mexico plans to ask U.S. President Joe Biden for as much as $48 billion in financing for solar projects, Foreign Relations Secretary Marcel Ebrard said Tuesday.

    Ebrard said the request will be presented to Biden at the upcoming Jan. 9-10 meeting of U.S., Canadian and Mexican leaders in Mexico City.

    Mexico hopes to build solar energy parks in the northern border state of Sonora, along with power transmission lines. Mexico hopes to receive some of the funding from the North American Development Bank, or NADBank.

    The bank funds green development projects, but has never provided financing on anything near the scale Mexico is requesting.

    Mexico also may get some of the funding between now and 2030 by issuing debt bonds.

    The solar parks are to be run by Mexico’s state-owned utility, which has been involved in a trade dispute between Mexico and the United States.

    The U.S. and Canada accuse President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of trying to favor Mexico’s state-owned utility over power plants built by foreign and private investors, something that is forbidden under the U.S.-Mexico Canada free trade pact.

    On Tuesday, López Obrador also ended speculation about whether a Chinese company might be able to mine lithium deposits in Sonora. The Chinese firm already had approvals for such a mine when López Obrador declared earlier this year that lithium was a strategically important mineral that could only be mined by the Mexican government.

    López Obrador had promised to respect any existing permits, but on Tuesday he said none were viable.

    “Fortunately, there were no private concessions,” López Obrador said. “They are claiming there was a concession, but it was at the project stage. Now, any lithium mining will involve a state-owned Mexican company.”

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  • High court temporarily blocks lifting of asylum restrictions

    High court temporarily blocks lifting of asylum restrictions

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is temporarily blocking an order that would lift pandemic-era restrictions on asylum seekers but the brief order leaves open the prospect that the restrictions in place since the coronavirus pandemic began and have been used to turn back hundreds of thousands of prospective asylum seekers could still expire on Wednesday.

    The court’s decision comes as officials and aid groups along the border are trying to prepare for whatever changes may or may not come Wednesday.

    In the city of El Paso, Mayor Oscar Leeser said they’ve received information from Border Patrol and shelters just across the border in Mexico indicating that up to 20,000 migrants might be waiting to cross into El Paso. The Red Cross has brought 10,000 cots to help with the increase, he said.

    The order Monday by Chief Justice John Roberts — who handles emergency matters that come from federal courts in the nation’s capital — comes as conservative states are pushing to keep the limits on asylum seekers that were put in place to stem the spread of COVID-19. The states appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court in a last-ditch effort before the restrictions are set to expire Wednesday, saying that lifting the limits on asylum seekers would cause irreparable harm to their states.

    In the one-page order, Roberts granted a stay pending further order and asked the government to respond by 5 p.m. Tuesday. That is just hours before the restrictions are slated to expire on Wednesday.

    The order by Roberts means the high-profile case that has drawn intense scrutiny at a time that the Republicans are set to take control of the House and make immigration a key issue will go down to the wire.

    The immigration restrictions, often referred to as Title 42, were put in place under then-President Donald Trump in March 2020 and have prevented hundreds of thousands of migrants from seeking asylum in the U.S. in recent years. But as they’re set to expire, thousands more migrants are packed in shelters on Mexico’s border with the U.S.

    Conservative-leaning states have argued that lifting Title 42 will lead to a surge of migrants into their states and take a toll on government services like health care or law enforcement. They also charge that the federal government has no plan to deal with an increase in migrants.

    “This Court’s review is warranted given the enormous national importance of this case. It is not reasonably contestable that the failure to grant a stay will cause an unprecedented calamity at the southern border,” the states wrote in their request Monday.

    Immigration advocates have said that the use of Title 42 goes against American and international obligations to people fleeing to the U.S. to escape persecution. And they’ve argued that things like vaccines and treatments for the coronavirus have made the policy outdated. They sued to end the use of Title 42; a federal judge in November sided with them and set the December 21 deadline.

    Immigration advocates weighed in on Roberts’ order. In a statement, Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, the President and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, called the decision “deeply regrettable.”

    “The Biden administration must make a full-throated defense of our humanitarian obligations in the face of politically motivated litigation. Title 42 has never been grounded in any public health rationale,” Vignarajah said in a statement late Monday. “Title 42 has only driven up repeat attempts to cross the border and lined the pockets of cartel smugglers who prey on vulnerable asylum seekers.”

    In a statement late Monday the Department of Homeland Security, which is responsible for enforcing border security, said as Title 42 is still in effect people who try to enter the U.S. “unlawfully” will be expelled to Mexico.

    “While this stage of the litigation proceeds, we will continue our preparations to manage the border in a safe, orderly, and humane way when the Title 42 public health order lifts,” the statement read.

    In the leadup to the end of Title 42, administration officials said they have surged more resources to the southern border, including more border patrol processing coordinators, more surveillance and increased security at ports of entry. About 23,000 agents are currently deployed to the southern border, according to the White House.

    Before the Supreme Court weighed in, White House officials stressed Monday that the administration was bound by a court order to lift the pandemic-era border policy, despite urging from Republicans and some Democrats in Congress to extend it.

    “The removal of Title 42 does not mean the border is open,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.

    Jean-Pierre said the administration has “additional robust planning underway” and pushed Congress to approve $3.5 billion in more funding for DHS as lawmakers continue to haggle over details for a massive year-end spending bill.

    That money for DHS would expand transportation capabilities so migrants can either be moved to less crowded border facilities, or be quickly removed if they have no legal grounds to stay. It would also fund more holding facilities, help speed up the processing of asylum claims and hire 300 more additional border patrol agents.

    In the border communities, officials and aid groups have been preparing for the end of Title 42 as well and doing so at a time when temperatures are expected to drop as an Arctic blast sweeps south.

    The top elected official in Hidalgo County, Judge Richard Cortez, said in the Texas border community of McAllen Border Patrol agents have been meeting with city and county officials, including in Mexico, to prepare for an influx of migrants crossing the border once the Title 42 policy ends. He’s concerned about where migrants will be able to sleep or get a warm meal and making sure the bridge connecting the U.S. and Mexico remains open to commercial traffic.

    “If they get overwhelmed at the ports of entry, they’re just going to turn them loose … and so where are they going to sleep at night, where are they going to eat? It just puts us in an unknown situation. What do we prepare for?” he said. “We’re going to do the very best we can. To me, I don’t know why Congress has not sat down and tried to improve the situation.”

    __

    Associated Press reporters Seung Min Kim in Washington and Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City contributed to this report

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  • US asks court to end asylum limits, with a short delay

    US asks court to end asylum limits, with a short delay

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    EL PASO, Texas (AP) — Texas dispatched National Guard troops to the border, and San Diego businesses anticipated a wave of Christmas shoppers from Mexico, as tens of thousands of asylum-seekers at the border waited for a Supreme Court ruling that could allow them to enter the United States.

    The U.S. government asked the Supreme Court not to lift the limits before Christmas, in a filing a day after Chief Justice John Roberts issued a temporary order to keep the pandemic-era restrictions in place. Before Roberts issued that order, they had been slated to expire Wednesday.

    Under the restrictions, officials have expelled asylum-seekers inside the United States 2.5 million times, and turned away most people who requested asylum at the border, on grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19 under a public health rule called Title 42. Both U.S. and international law guarantee the right to claim asylum.

    The federal government also asked the court to reject a last-minute effort by a group of conservative-leaning states to maintain the measure. It acknowledged that ending the restrictions will likely lead to “disruption and a temporary increase in unlawful border crossings,” but said the solution is not to extend the rule indefinitely.

    With the decision on what comes next going down to the wire, pressure is building in communities along both sides of the U.S-Mexico border.

    In El Paso, Democratic Mayor Oscar Leeser warned that shelters across the border in Ciudad Juárez were packed to capacity, with an estimated 20,000 migrants prepared to cross into the U.S.

    At one point late Tuesday, some migrants were allowed to enter in batches through a gate in the border wall between two bridges that connect downtown El Paso with Ciudad Juarez, which is not uncommon at this spot on the border. Word that the gate was opening sent hundreds of people scrambling along the concrete banks of the Rio Grande, leaving smoldering campfires behind.

    The city rushed to expand its ability to accommodate more migrants by converting large buildings into shelters, as the Red Cross brings in 10,000 cots. Local officials also hope to relieve pressure on shelters by chartering buses to other large cities in Texas or nearby states, bringing migrants a step closer to relatives and sponsors in coordination with nonprofit groups.

    “We will continue to be prepared for whatever is coming through,” Leeser said.

    Texas National Guard members, deployed by the state to El Paso this week, used razor wire on Tuesday to cordon off a gap in the border fence along a bank of the Rio Grande that became a popular crossing point for migrants who waded through shallow waters to approach immigration officials in recent days. They used a loudspeaker to announce in Spanish that it’s illegal to cross there.

    Texas said it was sending 400 National Guard personnel to the border city after local officials declared a state of emergency. Leeser said the declaration was aimed largely at protecting vulnerable migrants, while a statement from the Texas National Guard said the deployment included forces used to “repel and turn-back illegal immigrants.”

    In San Diego, a sense of normalcy returned to the nation’s busiest border crossing despite uncertainty leading up to Roberts’ decision. The San Ysidro Chamber of Commerce said it learned from U.S. Customs and Border Protection that the more modern, western half of the airport-sized pedestrian crossing would reopen to U.S.-bound travelers Wednesday at 6 a.m. The lanes, which lead to an upscale outlet mall, have been closed to almost all migrants since early 2020 to accommodate Title 42 processing.

    The reopening comes “just in time for last-minute shoppers, visiting family members and those working during the holidays,” the chamber wrote to members. It said it didn’t know when the area would reopen to travelers going to Mexico from the United States.

    Immigration advocates have said that the Title 42 restrictions, imposed under provisions of a 1944 health law, go against American and international obligations to people fleeing to the U.S. to escape persecution, and that the pretext is outdated as coronavirus treatments improve. They sued to end the use of Title 42; a federal judge sided with them in November and set the Dec. 21 deadline.

    Conservative-leaning states appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that an increased numbers of migrants would take a toll on public services such as law enforcement and health care and warned of an “unprecedented calamity” at the southern border. They said the federal government has no plan to deal with an increase in migrants.

    The federal government opposed the appeal, and told the court Tuesday that it has marshaled more resources to the southern border in preparation for the end of Title 42. That includes more Border Patrol processing coordinators, more surveillance and increased security at ports of entry, according to President Joe Biden’s administration.

    About 23,000 agents are currently deployed to the southern border, according to the White House.

    “The solution to that immigration problem cannot be to extend indefinitely a public-health measure that all now acknowledge has outlived its public-health justification,” the Biden administration wrote in its brief to the Supreme Court.

    Yet the government also asked the court to give it some time to prepare if it decides to allow the restrictions to be lifted. Should the Supreme Court act before Friday, the government wants the restrictions in place until the end of Dec. 27. If the court acts on Friday or later, the government wants the limits to remain until the second business day following such an order.

    At a church-affiliated shelter in El Paso a few blocks from the border, the Rev. Michael Gallagher said local faith leaders have been trying to pool resources and open up empty space. On Tuesday, a gym at Sacred Heart Church gave shelter to 200 migrants — mostly women and children.

    Title 42 allows the government to expel asylum-seekers of all nationalities, but it’s disproportionately affected people from countries whose citizens Mexico has agreed to take: Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and, more recently Venezuela, in addition to Mexico.

    ___

    Santana reported from Washington, D.C. Juan Lozano in Houston and Alicia Fernández in Ciudad Juárez contributed to this report.

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  • Faith leaders prep for border changes amid tension, hope

    Faith leaders prep for border changes amid tension, hope

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    REYNOSA, Mexico — Two long lines of migrants waited for blessings from visiting Catholic priests celebrating Mass at the Casa del Migrante shelter in this border city, just across the bank of the Rio Grande River from Texas.

    After services ended last week, several crammed around the three Jesuits again, asking about upcoming U.S. policy changes that would end pandemic-era asylum restrictions. That’s expected to result in even more people trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border, adding to the already unusually high apprehension numbers.

    “All of you will be able to cross at some point,” the Rev. Brian Strassburger told the nearly 100 Mass goers in Spanish while a Haitian migrant translated in Creole. “Our hope is that with this change, it will mean less time. My advice is, be patient.”

    It is getting harder to deliver that message of hope and patience not only for Strassburger, but also for the Catholic nuns running this shelter and leaders from numerous faith organizations who have long shouldered most of the care for tens of thousands of migrants on both sides of the border.

    Migrants here — mostly from Haiti, but also Central and South America and more recently from Russia — are deeply mistrustful of swirling policy rumors. A judge has ordered the restriction known as Title 42, which only affect certain nationalities, to end Wednesday. But the asylum restriction, which was supposed to lift in May, is still being litigated.

    Faith leaders working on the border are wary of what’s to come. They expect tensions will keep rising if new restrictions are imposed. And if not, they will struggle to host ever larger numbers of arrivals at already over-capacity shelters and quickly resettle them in a volatile political environment.

    “People are coming because it’s not long before the bridge will be opened. But I don’t think that the United States is going to say, ‘OK, all!’” said the Rev. Hector Silva. The evangelical pastor has 4,200 migrants packed in his two Reynosa shelters, and more thronging their gates.

    Pregnant women, a staggering number in shelters, have the best chance of legally entering the U.S. to apply for asylum. It takes up to three weeks, under humanitarian parole. Families wait up to eight weeks and it can take single adults three months, Strassburger explained at Casa del Migrante, where he travels from his Texas parish to celebrate Mass twice a week.

    Last week, the shelter housed nearly 300 people, mostly women and children, in tightly packed bunk beds with sleeping pads between them. Men wait in the streets, exposed to cartel violence, said Sister Maria Tello, who runs Casa del Migrante.

    “Our challenge is to be able to serve all those who keep coming, that they may find a place worthy of them. …Twenty leave and 30 enter. And there are many outside we can’t assist,” said Tello, a Sisters of Mercy nun.

    Edimar Valera, 23, fled Venezuela with family, including her two-year-old daughter. They crossed the notoriously dangerous Darien Gap, where Valera nearly drowned and went without food. After arriving in Reynosa and escaping a kidnapping, she found refuge at Casa del Migrante, where she’s been since November despite having a sponsor ten miles away in McAllen, Texas.

    “We need to wait, and it could be good for some and bad for others. One doesn’t know what to do,” she said, finding some comfort in Mass and daily prayers, where she begs God for help and patience.

    So does Eslande, 31, who left Haiti for Chile. She is on her second attempt to cross into the U.S. after not finding there the right help for her young son’s learning disability. At Casa del Migrante just a day, she read the Gospel aloud in Creole during Mass, a reminder of happier times when her father distributed Communion.

    “I have faith that I will be going in,” she said in the Spanish she’s learned en route. Like many migrants, she only gave a first name fearing for her safety.

    Tensions are rising faster than hope as it’s unclear who will be able to cross first.

    “Any change could grow the bottleneck,” said the Rev. Louie Hotop, dropping off hygiene donations at one of Silva’s shelters — a guarded, walled camp with rows of tents pitched tightly together.

    Even if Title 42 is lifted and thousands more are allowed to enter the U.S., asylum seekers would still face enormous backlogs and slim approval chances. Asylum is granted to those who cannot return to their countries for fear of persecution on specific grounds — starvation, poverty and violence don’t usually count.

    It’s a long, uncertain road ahead even for the roughly 150 migrants at a barebones welcome center in McAllen, Texas, where the Jesuit priests stop after their Reynosa visits. Families legally admitted to the United States, or apprehended and released, rested in the large Catholic Charities-run hall before traveling to join sponsors.

    Lugging their Mass kit and heavy speakers, the priests offered migrants spiritual and practical help– like writing “I’m pregnant. Can you ask for a wheelchair to bring me to my gate?” on a paper for a Honduran woman eight months pregnant with her first child and terrified about airport travel.

    “It’s a way of listening, of supporting, it’s not so much resolving the immediate problem,” the Rev. Flavio Bravo said. “They bring stories of trauma, of life, that we must give value to.”

    Sister Norma Pimentel, a prominent migrant rights advocate who first helped border crossers four decades ago and now runs Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, said religious people should push for centrist reform to help migrants — not make them political pawns.

    “Policies don’t respond to the realities we’re facing,” said Pimentel, who opened the welcome center in 2014 for the first big asylum surge of this century. “It’s impossible to help everyone … but who are we to limit the grace of God?”

    Now, the busiest crossing is some 800 miles away in El Paso, Texas, and neighboring Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Ronny, 26, turned himself into U.S. authorities there and was flown to McAllen because “around Juarez it was collapsing,” he said last week at Pimentel’s shelter.

    He and his family left Venezuela on foot in September because he opposed his country’s regime and his wages were too low to afford food. He has a U.S. immigration appointment next month in New York where his sponsor lives, but no money to get there.

    On his first free night in the U.S., he turned to God, following Mass from a distance so he wouldn’t leave the thin mat where his children slept.

    “We ask God for everything. Always,” he said.

    ———

    Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

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  • The 2026 World Cup in numbers

    The 2026 World Cup in numbers

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    The countdown begins for the 2026 World Cup

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  • AP Breakthrough Entertainer: Tenoch Huerta, a global hero

    AP Breakthrough Entertainer: Tenoch Huerta, a global hero

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    By BERENICE BAUTISTA

    December 16, 2022 GMT

    MEXICO CITY (AP) — The opening credits of “Wakanda Forever” fittingly say “introducing Tenoch Huerta.”

    What an introduction it’s been.

    Huerta’s role as Namor in the “Black Panther” sequel has wowed audiences, catapulting him onto the global stage and sparking conversations about race and identity, both in his native Mexico and abroad. It’s also led to Huerta being named one of The Associated Press’ Breakthrough Entertainers of 2022, joining the ranks of Sadie Sink, Daryl McCormack and his fellow Marvel standout, Iman Vellani.

    Like many of the Breakthrough Entertainer honorees, Huerta isn’t a newcomer. He’s appeared in numerous films such as “The Forever Purge” and series like “Mozart in the Jungle” and “Narcos: Mexico.” But “Wakanda Forever” has given him a new level of global exposure, which he’s using to advance several causes like inclusivity and social justice.

    Huerta grew up in Ecatepec, a suburban area of Mexico City, infamous for its high levels of delinquency and often referred with prejudice by the people in the capital.

    “It’s not easy to come from there,” said Huerta in a recent interview in Mexico City during the promotion of “Wakanda Forever.” The area is close to the capital, but “you can spend a couple of hours to reach the nearest subway station, there’s violence.”

    Huerta, 41, acknowledged that the fact that he didn’t see “brown skin people” like him on screen or theater, and definitively not in advertisements, made him believe that acting wasn’t a serious possibility. “You can’t dream of something that you can see,” he said.

    He spent many years playing American Football, and it wasn’t until his father prodded him that he considered acting. “When I was 16 my father insisted to me to become an actor, he pushed me to take workshops,” said Huerta. “The workshop was for two or three weeks, and I spent nine months. I liked it a lot but, (it) never was my life plan, it was just a hobby.”

    He kept going to casting calls and was selected to play a gardener who entertains white rich youngsters in Gael García Bernal’s debut feature “Deficit” (2007). That took him to the Cannes Film Festival for the first time, a journey he repeated in 2011 with Everardo Gout’s “Days of Grace,” for which he won the Ariel, the Mexican equivalent to the Oscars, as best actor.

    “Until that moment I assumed, I understood I was an actor, but it takes a long time and a nomination to the Ariel, many awards around the world and in Mexico, and finally in that moment I thought, ‘Ok I’m an actor.’ It was a process,” said Huerta.

    Huerta said he was a fan of Marvel movies and was really pleased when he received a videocall from the director Ryan Coogler who was explaining the plot of “Wakanda Forever.” The story included a shaman and a potion that people drank before jumping into the ocean.

    “The communication was frozen for about five minutes so when he is back, he says ‘So what do you think?’” recalled Huerta. “I never understood clearly what was about this offer and then I told my agents, and they found out that he (Coogler) was offering me Namor. I assumed it was the shaman, but they said, ‘No its Namor.’”

    His character is the leader of Tlalokan, the subaquatic world where Namor lives. It is a vibrant world inspired by pre-Hispanic architecture and culture, created with help from Mayan experts.

    “They grew up in Mayan communities, they are Mayan speakers and they have degrees and all the credentials to work in this movie,” said Huerta. “I just can say that Marvel and Disney they’re making a really great job of inclusion and representation and finally people like us, we’re able to see ourselves in this movie, so proud, so beautiful and so powerful, that’s a gift.”

    Huerta said the second-best part, after the reassurance of collaborating with experts in the film, was to do all the training and battles, learning to hold his breath for minutes underwater and use wires to simulate the flights of Namor.

    “In real life … my knees hurt, my back and everything. I’m a simple human, and I’m getting old by the way,” said Huerta smiling. “But in the movie it’s such a great experience.”

    In Mexico Huerta has become a symbol of the fight for racial justice, winning acclaim but also facing criticism from people who consider him problematic because as a person with dark skin, Huerta denounces prejudice against those who look like him.

    Huerta recently published “Orgullo prieto” (which loosely translates as Dark Skinned Pride) a book in which he recalls his own experiences facing racism and classism in his country.

    “For me this book is a way to say we need to learn, we need to change and then try to have a better society. I specially wrote this book for the kids for the young people,” said the father of two girls. “I try to create, as much as I can, a better place to live for them.”

    Seeing himself as a breakthrough artist brings Huerta hope.

    “I don’t know how my life is gonna be changed from this point on, but I hope this movie affects the people, affects the kids and if the kids are able to look at themselves on the mirror and feel proud,” he said. “If they are able to look at them and feel proud of themselves, for me, that’s perfect.”

    ___

    For more on AP’s 2022 class of Breakthrough Entertainers, please visit: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-breakthrough-entertainers

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  • Texas mayor declares state of emergency over migrant swell

    Texas mayor declares state of emergency over migrant swell

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    EL PASO, Texas — The mayor of a Texas border city declared a state of emergency Saturday over concerns about the community’s ability to handle an anticipated influx of migrants across the Southern border.

    El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser issued the state of emergency declaration to allow the city on the U.S. border with Mexico to tap into additional resources that are expected to become necessary after Title 42 expulsions end on Dec. 21, the El Paso Times reported.

    Leeser had previously resisted issuing an emergency declaration, but said he was moved to action by the sight of people on downtown streets with temperatures dipping below freezing, the Times reported.

    “That’s not the way we want to treat people,” Leeser said during a news conference Saturday evening.

    A ruling Friday by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals means restrictions that have prevented hundreds of thousands of migrants from seeking asylum in the U.S. in recent years are still set to be lifted Wednesday, unless further appeals are filed.

    Leeser added that the increase would be “incredible” after Wednesday, when daily apprehensions and street releases could reach up to 6,000 per day, the Times reported.

    El Paso Deputy City Manager Mario D’Agostino said the state emergency of declaration would give the city greater flexibility in operating larger sheltering operations and providing additional transportation for asylum seekers.

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  • US court rejects maintaining COVID-19 asylum restrictions

    US court rejects maintaining COVID-19 asylum restrictions

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    REYNOSA, Mexico — Restrictions that have prevented hundreds of thousands of migrants from seeking asylum in the U.S. in recent years remained on track to expire in a matter of days after an appeals court ruling Friday, as thousands more migrants packed shelters on Mexico’s border with the U.S.

    The ruling from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals means the restrictions known as Title 42 are still set to be lifted Wednesday, unless further appeals are filed.

    A coalition of 19 Republican-leaning states were pushing to keep the asylum restrictions put in place by former President Donald Trump at the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Migrants have been denied rights to seek asylum under U.S. and international law 2.5 million times since March 2020 on grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19. The public-health has left some migrants biding time in Mexico.

    Advocates for immigrants had argued that the U.S. was abandoning its longstanding history and commitments to offer refuge to people around the world fleeing persecution, and sued to end the use of Title 42. They’ve also argued the restrictions were a pretext by Trump for restricting migration, and in any case, vaccines and other treatments make that argument outdated.

    A judge last month sided with them and set Dec. 21 as the deadline for the federal government to end the practice. Conservative states trying to keep Title 42 in place had pushed to intervene in the case. But a three-judge panel on Friday night rejected their efforts, saying the states had waited too long. Louisiana’s Attorney General expressed disappointment with the decision and said they would appeal to the Supreme Court.

    Border cities, most notably El Paso, Texas, are facing a daily migrant influx that the Biden administration expects to grow if asylum restrictions are lifted. Tijuana, the largest Mexican border city, has an estimated 5,000 people in more than 30 shelters, Enrique Lucero, the city’s director of migrant affairs said this week.

    In Reynosa, Mexico, near McAllen, Texas, nearly 300 migrants — mostly families — crammed into the Casa del Migrante, sleeping on bunk beds and even on the floor.

    Rose, a 32-year-old Haitian, has been in the shelter for three weeks with her daughter and 1-year-old son. Rose, who did not provide her last name because she fears it could jeopardize her safety and her attempts to seek asylum, said she learned on her journey of possible changes to U.S. policies. She said she was happy to wait a little longer in Mexico for the lifting of restrictions that were enacted at the outset of the pandemic and that have become a cornerstone of U.S. border enforcement.

    “We’re very scared, because the Haitians are deported,” said Rose, who is worried any mistakes in trying to get her family to the U.S. could get her sent back to Haiti.

    Inside Senda de Vida 2, a Reynosa shelter opened by an evangelical Christian pastor when his first one reached capacity, about 3,000 migrants are living in tents pitched on concrete slabs and gravel. Flies swarm everywhere under a hot sun beating down even in mid-December.

    For the many fleeing violence in Haiti, Venezuela and elsewhere, such shelters offer at least some safety from the cartels that control passage through the Rio Grande and prey on migrants.

    In McAllen, about 100 migrants who avoided asylum restrictions rested on floor mats Thursday in a large hall run by Catholic Charities, waiting for transportation to families and friends across the U.S.

    Gloria, a 22-year-old from Honduras who is eight months pregnant with her first child, held onto a printed sheet that read: “Please help me. I do not speak English.” Gloria also did not want her last name used out of fear for her safety. She expressed concerns about navigating the airport alone and making it to Florida, where she has a family acquaintance.

    Andrea Rudnik, co-founder of an all-volunteer migrant welcome association in Brownsville, Texas, across the border from Matamoros, Mexico, was worried about having enough winter coats for migrants coming from warmer climates.

    “We don’t have enough supplies,” she said Friday, noting donations to Team Brownsville are down.

    Title 42, which is part of a 1944 public health law, applies to all nationalities but has fallen unevenly on those whom Mexico agrees to take back — Guatemalans, Hondurans, El Salvadorans and, more recently, Venezuelans, in addition to Mexicans. Illegal border crossings of single adults dipped in November, according to a Justice Department court filing released Friday, though it gave no explanation for why. It also did not account for families traveling with young children and children traveling alone.

    According to the filing, Border Patrol agents stopped single adults 143,903 times along the Mexican border in November, down 9% from 158,639 times in October and the lowest level since August. Nicaraguans became the second-largest nationality at the border among single adults after Mexicans, surpassing Cubans.

    Venezuelan single adults were stopped 3,513 times by Border Patrol agents in November, plunging from 14,697 a month earlier, demonstrating the impact of Mexico’s decision on Oct. 12 to accept migrants from the South American country who are expelled from the U.S.

    Mexican single adults were stopped 43,504 times, down from 56,088 times in October, more than any other nationality. Nicaraguan adults were stopped 27,369 times, up from 16,497. Cuban adults were stopped 24,690 times, up from 20,744.

    In a related development, a federal judge in Amarillo, Texas, ruled Thursday that the Biden administration wrongly ended a Trump-era policy to make asylum-seekers wait in Mexico for hearings in U.S. immigration court. The ruling had no immediate impact but could prove a longer-term setback for the White House.

    White House spokesman Abdullah Hasan said immigration laws would continue to be enforced at the border and the Biden administration would work to expand legal pathways for migrants but discourage “disorderly and unsafe migration.”

    “To be clear: the lifting of the Title 42 public health order does not mean the border is open,” he said. “Anyone who suggests otherwise is doing the work of smugglers spreading misinformation to make a quick buck off of vulnerable migrants.”

    ———

    Santana reported from Washington. Associated Press reporters Elliot Spagat in San Diego and Paul J. Weber in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report.

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  • What will happen with migrants as Title 42 pandemic-era border policy ends

    What will happen with migrants as Title 42 pandemic-era border policy ends

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    What will happen with migrants as Title 42 pandemic-era border policy ends – CBS News


    Watch CBS News



    A D.C. appeals court declined to delay the end of the Title 42 border policy, which will end on Dec. 21 if the Supreme Court does not step in. Ruben Garcia, director of Annunciation House, discusses how his organization helps migrants as they cross into the U.S.

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  • Mexico president insists relations with Spain still ‘paused’

    Mexico president insists relations with Spain still ‘paused’

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    MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s president insisted Friday that his country’s relations with Spain are still “on pause,” one day after Mexico’s top diplomat met with his Spanish counterpart and said relations were being “relaunched.”

    The confusing about-face involves years-old complaints by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador about Spanish companies operating in Mexico, and Spain’s refusal to apologize for abuses committed during the conquest of Mexico in the colonial era.

    Mexico’s foreign policy appears to be largely conducted by López Obrador, who also recently placed “on pause” relations with Peru. In the case of Peru, López Obrador said Mexico still recognizes Pedro Castillo as the Peruvian president despite lawmakers removing him from office last week for trying to dissolve Congress before a scheduled impeachment vote.

    On Thursday, Mexican Foreign Relations Secretary Marcelo Ebrard met with his Spanish counterpart, José Manuel Albares, and said that “we are entering into a relaunching, regarding bilateral relations.” The two embraced and spoke of new cooperation during the meeting of the Spain-Mexico Bilateral Commission.

    But early Friday, López Obrador contradicted Ebrard, saying: “No, the pause continues, because there is no attitude of respect on their part.”

    In February, López Obrador accused Spanish companies of taking unfair advantage of private-sector openings to sign crooked contracts to build power plants in Mexico.

    In 2020, López Obrador sent a letter asking Spain to apologize for the brutality of the 1521 conquest of Mexico and centuries of colonial rule.

    “I sent a respectful letter to the head of state, the king of Spain, and he didn’t even have the courtesy to answer me,” the president complained Friday. “They said we had to thank them for coming here and colonizing us, and later with the companies, the same arrogant attitude.”

    Spain quickly shot back in a statement from the foreign ministry.

    “The government of Spain emphatically rejects the comments by the president of Mexico about His Majesty the King, Spanish companies and Spanish political sectors,” the statement said. “These statements are incomprehensible after a successful Bilateral Commission that offered so many concrete results.”

    The whole thing put Ebrard — who hopes to be nominated by the president’s Morena party to succeed López Obrador — in a difficult spot. Ebrard cannot publicly disagree with the president, though he suggested the Thursday meeting had been approved by López Obrador.

    Mexico’s 2020 letter said, “The Catholic Church, the Spanish monarchy and the Mexican government should make a public apology for the offensive atrocities that Indigenous people suffered.”

    The letter came as Mexico marked the 500th anniversary of the 1519-1521 conquest, which resulted in the death of a large part of the country’s pre-Hispanic population.

    López Obrador had already asked Spain for an apology for the conquest in 2019. Spain’s foreign minister at the time, Josep Borrell, said his country “will not issue these apologies that have been requested.”

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  • US court rejects maintaining COVID-19 asylum restrictions

    US court rejects maintaining COVID-19 asylum restrictions

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    REYNOSA, Mexico (AP) — Restrictions that have prevented hundreds of thousands of migrants from seeking asylum in the U.S. in recent years remained on track to expire in a matter of days after an appeals court ruling Friday, as thousands more migrants packed shelters on Mexico’s border with the U.S.

    The ruling from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals means the restrictions known as Title 42 are still set to be lifted Wednesday, unless further appeals are filed.

    A coalition of 19 Republican-leaning states were pushing to keep the asylum restrictions put in place by former President Donald Trump at the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Migrants have been denied rights to seek asylum under U.S. and international law 2.5 million times since March 2020 on grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19. The public-health has left some migrants biding time in Mexico.

    Advocates for immigrants had argued that the U.S. was abandoning its longstanding history and commitments to offer refuge to people around the world fleeing persecution, and sued to end the use of Title 42. They’ve also argued the restrictions were a pretext by Trump for restricting migration, and in any case, vaccines and other treatments make that argument outdated.

    A judge last month sided with them and set Dec. 21 as the deadline for the federal government to end the practice. Conservative states trying to keep Title 42 in place had pushed to intervene in the case. But a three-judge panel on Friday night rejected their efforts, saying the states had waited too long. Louisiana’s Attorney General expressed disappointment with the decision and said they would appeal to the Supreme Court.

    Border cities, most notably El Paso, Texas, are facing a daily migrant influx that the Biden administration expects to grow if asylum restrictions are lifted. Tijuana, the largest Mexican border city, has an estimated 5,000 people in more than 30 shelters, Enrique Lucero, the city’s director of migrant affairs said this week.

    In Reynosa, Mexico, near McAllen, Texas, nearly 300 migrants — mostly families — crammed into the Casa del Migrante, sleeping on bunk beds and even on the floor.

    Rose, a 32-year-old Haitian, has been in the shelter for three weeks with her daughter and 1-year-old son. Rose, who did not provide her last name because she fears it could jeopardize her safety and her attempts to seek asylum, said she learned on her journey of possible changes to U.S. policies. She said she was happy to wait a little longer in Mexico for the lifting of restrictions that were enacted at the outset of the pandemic and that have become a cornerstone of U.S. border enforcement.

    “We’re very scared, because the Haitians are deported,” said Rose, who is worried any mistakes in trying to get her family to the U.S. could get her sent back to Haiti.

    Inside Senda de Vida 2, a Reynosa shelter opened by an evangelical Christian pastor when his first one reached capacity, about 3,000 migrants are living in tents pitched on concrete slabs and gravel. Flies swarm everywhere under a hot sun beating down even in mid-December.

    For the many fleeing violence in Haiti, Venezuela and elsewhere, such shelters offer at least some safety from the cartels that control passage through the Rio Grande and prey on migrants.

    In McAllen, about 100 migrants who avoided asylum restrictions rested on floor mats Thursday in a large hall run by Catholic Charities, waiting for transportation to families and friends across the U.S.

    Gloria, a 22-year-old from Honduras who is eight months pregnant with her first child, held onto a printed sheet that read: “Please help me. I do not speak English.” Gloria also did not want her last name used out of fear for her safety. She expressed concerns about navigating the airport alone and making it to Florida, where she has a family acquaintance.

    Andrea Rudnik, co-founder of an all-volunteer migrant welcome association in Brownsville, Texas, across the border from Matamoros, Mexico, was worried about having enough winter coats for migrants coming from warmer climates.

    “We don’t have enough supplies,” she said Friday, noting donations to Team Brownsville are down.

    Title 42, which is part of a 1944 public health law, applies to all nationalities but has fallen unevenly on those whom Mexico agrees to take back — Guatemalans, Hondurans, El Salvadorans and, more recently, Venezuelans, in addition to Mexicans. Illegal border crossings of single adults dipped in November, according to a Justice Department court filing released Friday, though it gave no explanation for why. It also did not account for families traveling with young children and children traveling alone.

    According to the filing, Border Patrol agents stopped single adults 143,903 times along the Mexican border in November, down 9% from 158,639 times in October and the lowest level since August. Nicaraguans became the second-largest nationality at the border among single adults after Mexicans, surpassing Cubans.

    Venezuelan single adults were stopped 3,513 times by Border Patrol agents in November, plunging from 14,697 a month earlier, demonstrating the impact of Mexico’s decision on Oct. 12 to accept migrants from the South American country who are expelled from the U.S.

    Mexican single adults were stopped 43,504 times, down from 56,088 times in October, more than any other nationality. Nicaraguan adults were stopped 27,369 times, up from 16,497. Cuban adults were stopped 24,690 times, up from 20,744.

    In a related development, a federal judge in Amarillo, Texas, ruled Thursday that the Biden administration wrongly ended a Trump-era policy to make asylum-seekers wait in Mexico for hearings in U.S. immigration court. The ruling had no immediate impact but could prove a longer-term setback for the White House.

    ___

    Santana reported from Washington. Associated Press reporters Elliot Spagat in San Diego and Paul J. Weber in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report.

    ___

    This version corrects November illegal crossings to single adults only, not all migrants.

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  • Russians find asylum lifeline to US, but at a high price

    Russians find asylum lifeline to US, but at a high price

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    CHULA VISTA, Calif. (AP) — Phil Metzger promises to arrange entry to the United States for Russian-speaking asylum-seekers through unmatched connections with U.S. border officials and people in Mexico who can guarantee safety while traveling. Though seeking asylum is free, the pastor of Calvary San Diego said his services are “not cheap.”

    In an interview with a Russian-language YouTube channel, he touted direct computer access to U.S. Customs and Border Protection to enroll migrants and was vague about “opportunists” in Mexico who ensure customers’ safety after they fly there on tourist visas and while they wait in Tijuana to cross.

    “I just know there’s a lot of power on that side that I just don’t control,” the evangelical Christian pastor said. “But I do have one control. I control who goes across. So I have to negotiate. To keep those people safe, I have to negotiate with those in power (in Mexico).”

    Asylum is supposed to be free and for those most in need; many have been unable to even ask for protection under COVID-19 restrictions that are set to expire Wednesday.

    Yet Metzger’s service, as described in the 25-minute interview last month at his church in the San Diego suburb of Chula Vista, is a private money-generating enterprise that uses its government connections to bypass those restrictions. It’s part of an opaque, bewildering patchwork of exemptions CBP has developed. Immigration advocates select who gets in, though CBP has final say.

    Asked about an outside group charging money, the Department of Homeland Security said there is no fee related to exemptions from asylum restrictions and that it will “look into any allegation of abuse.”

    “DHS takes any allegations of fraud or abuse of our immigration systems very seriously,” it said in a written response to questions about the service.

    The pastor did not respond to text, email and phone messages left over a week and his office was closed when a reporter went there on a recent weekday afternoon.

    ___

    This story is part of an ongoing Associated Press series, “Migration Inc,” which investigates individuals and companies that profit from the movement of people who flee violence and civil strife in their homelands.

    ___

    Migrants have been denied rights to seek asylum more than 2.5 million times since March 2020 on grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19 under Trump-era restrictions known as Title 42.

    Exemptions are supposed to be for migrants deemed most vulnerable in Mexico — perhaps for gender identity or sexual orientation, or for being specifically threatened with violence — but some partners say CBP doesn’t question choices and that migrants selected often face no unusual danger. The agency doesn’t publicly identify its partners or how many slots are made available to each, leaving migrants guessing who they are and which ones are best connected to U.S. authorities.

    In El Paso, Texas, CBP gives out 70 slots daily, half for the government of Mexico’s Chihuahua state and the rest for attorneys and advocacy groups, said Nicolas Palazzo, an attorney for Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, which participates in the arrangement. He said some attorneys unaffiliated with his organization charge migrants for the service.

    In Piedras Negras, Mexico, across from Eagle Pass, Texas, the city government chooses who escapes the reach of Title 42, according to a report last month from the University of Texas at Austin Strauss Center for International Security and Law. In Reynosa, across from McAllen, Texas, a migrant shelter picks who crosses, while in Laredo, Texas, there are no exemptions, the report says.

    In San Diego, CBP exempts about 200 people daily, including 40 slots that are set aside for Russian speakers working through Calvary San Diego, said Enrique Lucero, the city of Tijuana’s director of migrant affairs, who regularly communicates with U.S. officials.

    Other slots in San Diego are for advocacy groups Al Otro Lado, which operates an online registration list, and Border Angels, which leans on migrant shelter directors to select who gets to cross, and the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, a refugee resettlement organization.

    CBP is allowing more Russians to enter the United States with Title 42 exemptions, with about 3 in 4 coming through California border crossings with Mexico. In October, it exempted 3,879 Russians, more than triple the same period a year earlier. It exempted 21,626 Russians in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, more than five times the previous year.

    In the YouTube interview last month with Alex Moore, Metzger said his call center fields more than 1,000 inquiries a day. CBP tells him how many people can cross and “I control who crosses.”

    “Honestly, we think it was God opening a door for us,” said Metzger, who grew up in Southern California but spent much of his adult life in Eastern Europe.

    Metzger is unclear on who he pays to greet customers in Mexico and bring them to the border, saying he doesn’t know them.

    Through a Telegram account called Most V USA, the cost for single adults paying cash was 1,800 (presumably U.S. dollars) Monday — a “price reduction.” For married couples paying cash, the cost was $3,500. Online payments were $300 less for individuals and $500 less for couples. Children were free.

    “You pay not for the crossing, but for the consultation on the crossing,” Most V USA says on its website. “We use the only legal way available to our organization — making an appointment with a CBP officer at the border.”

    The price includes crossing to the United States safely in groups from Tijuana to San Diego, with a bag containing water and protein bars.

    Metzger opened his large church to Ukrainian refugees after Russia’s invasion this year, working with volunteers on a smooth-running operation that deployed a mobile app used to track church attendance. Ukrainians who flew to Tijuana were told to report to a San Diego border crossing as their numbers approached, a system organizers likened to waiting for a restaurant table.

    Metzger touts connections with CBP developed during that time and warns about falling for scammers who use his Most V USA brand.

    “No, it’s not cheap. No, it’s not easy but we will make sure that it is safe and that you will get into the States,” he said.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Jim Heintz in Moscow contributed.

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  • Russians find asylum lifeline to US, but at a high price

    Russians find asylum lifeline to US, but at a high price

    [ad_1]

    CHULA VISTA, Calif. — Phil Metzger promises to arrange entry to the United States for Russian-speaking asylum-seekers through unmatched connections with U.S. border officials and people in Mexico who can guarantee safety while traveling. Though seeking asylum is free, the pastor of Calvary San Diego said his services are “not cheap.”

    In an interview with a Russian-language YouTube channel, he touted director computer access to U.S. Customs and Border Protection to enroll migrants and was vague about “opportunists” in Mexico who ensure customers’ safety after they fly there on tourist visas and while they wait in Tijuana to cross.

    “I just know there’s a lot of power on that side that I just don’t control,” the evangelical Christian pastor said. “But I do have one control. I control who goes across. So I have to negotiate. To keep those people safe, I have to negotiate with those in power (in Mexico).”

    Asylum is supposed to be free and for those most in need; many have been unable to even ask for protection under COVID-19 restrictions that are set to expire Wednesday.

    Yet Metzger’s service, as described in the 25-minute interview last month at his church in the San Diego suburb of Chula Vista, is a private money-generating enterprise that uses its government connections to bypass those restrictions. It’s part of an opaque, bewildering patchwork of exemptions CBP has developed. Immigration advocates select who gets in, though CBP has final say.

    Asked about an outside group charging money, the Department of Homeland Security said there is no fee related to exemptions from asylum restrictions and that it will “look into any allegation of abuse.”

    “DHS takes any allegations of fraud or abuse of our immigration systems very seriously,” it said in a written response to questions about the service.

    The pastor did not respond to text, email and phone messages left over a week and his office was closed when a reporter went there on a recent weekday afternoon.

    ———

    This story is part of an ongoing Associated Press series, “Migration Inc,” which investigates individuals and companies that profit from the movement of people who flee violence and civil strife in their homelands.

    ———

    Migrants have been denied rights to seek asylum more than 2.5 million times since March 2020 on grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19 under Trump-era restrictions known as Title 42.

    Exemptions are supposed to be for migrants deemed most vulnerable in Mexico — perhaps for gender identity or sexual orientation, or for being specifically threatened with violence — but some partners say CBP doesn’t question choices and that migrants selected often face no unusual danger. The agency doesn’t publicly identify its partners or how many slots are made available to each, leaving migrants guessing who they are and which ones are best connected to U.S. authorities.

    In El Paso, Texas, CBP gives out 70 slots daily, half for the government of Mexico’s Chihuahua state and the rest for attorneys and advocacy groups, said Nicolas Palazzo, an attorney for Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, which participates in the arrangement. He said some attorneys unaffiliated with his organization charge migrants for the service.

    In Piedras Negras, Mexico, across from Eagle Pass, Texas, the city government chooses who escapes the reach of Title 42, according to a report last month from the University of Texas at Austin Strauss Center for International Security and Law. In Reynosa, across from McAllen, Texas, a migrant shelter picks who crosses, while in Laredo, Texas, there are no exemptions, the report says.

    In San Diego, CBP exempts about 200 people daily, including 40 slots that are set aside for Russian speakers working through Calvary San Diego, said Enrique Lucero, the city of Tijuana’s director of migrant affairs, who regularly communicates with U.S. officials.

    Other slots in San Diego are for advocacy groups Al Otro Lado, which operates an online registration list, and Border Angels, which leans on migrant shelter directors to select who gets to cross, and the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, a refugee resettlement organization.

    CBP is allowing more Russians to enter the United States with Title 42 exemptions, with about 3 in 4 coming through California border crossings with Mexico. In October, it exempted 3,879 Russians, more than triple the same period a year earlier. It exempted 21,626 Russians in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, more than five times the previous year.

    In the YouTube interview last month with Alex Moore, Metzger said his call center fields more than 1,000 inquiries a day. CBP tells him how many people can cross and “I control who crosses.”

    “Honestly, we think it was God opening a door for us,” said Metzger, who grew up in Southern California but spent much of his adult life in Eastern Europe.

    Metzger is unclear on who he pays to greet customers in Mexico and bring them to the border, saying he doesn’t know them.

    Through a Telegram account called Most V USA, the cost for single adults paying cash was 1,800 (presumably U.S. dollars) Monday — a “price reduction.” For married couples paying cash, the cost was $3,500. Online payments were $300 less for individuals and $500 less for couples. Children were free.

    “You pay not for the crossing, but for the consultation on the crossing,” Most V USA says on its website. “We use the only legal way available to our organization — making an appointment with a CBP officer at the border.”

    The price includes crossing to the United States safely in groups from Tijuana to San Diego, with a bag containing water and protein bars.

    Metzger opened his large church to Ukrainian refugees after Russia’s invasion this year, working with volunteers on a smooth-running operation that deployed a mobile app used to track church attendance. Ukrainians who flew to Tijuana were told to report to a San Diego border crossing as their numbers approached, a system organizers likened to waiting for a restaurant table.

    Metzger touts connections with CBP developed during that time and warns about falling for scammers who use his Most V USA brand.

    “No, it’s not cheap. No, it’s not easy but we will make sure that it is safe and that you will get into the States,” he said.

    ———

    Associated Press writer Jim Heintz in Moscow contributed.

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  • Migrants in El Paso share stories of being kidnapped in Mexico, facing dire conditions

    Migrants in El Paso share stories of being kidnapped in Mexico, facing dire conditions

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    Migrants in El Paso share stories of being kidnapped in Mexico, facing dire conditions – CBS News


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    Many migrants who crossed into El Paso, Texas, this week say they were part of a group kidnapped in Mexico, only to experience dire conditions on their route as temperatures drop below freezing and shelters exceed capacity. Lilia Luciano spoke to families about what they said was a harrowing journey to the border.

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  • Biden administration warns of potential influx of migrants immediately after Title 42 ends | CNN Politics

    Biden administration warns of potential influx of migrants immediately after Title 42 ends | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The end of a Trump-era border policy next week will “likely increase migration flows immediately,” and migrants who are in encampments along Mexico’s northern border may attempt to cross into the United States, according to a Homeland Security intelligence memo reviewed by CNN.

    Administration officials have been bracing for an influx of migrants when a public health authority, known as Title 42, ends next week. A federal judge last month blocked the use of the authority, which since the start of the coronavirus pandemic has allowed officials to turn away migrants encountered at the US-Mexico border.

    The strain a surge of migrants will pose to already overwhelmed resources came into sharp focus this week in El Paso, Texas. The city is now grappling with over 2,000 migrants arriving daily, according to city officials.

    The intelligence memo, from the Homeland Security Office of Intelligence and Analysis, underscores the concern within the administration over an increase in arrivals after Title 42 ends amid mass migration across the Western hemisphere and the role human smuggling organizations play in moving people. It’s been distributed within the administration and stakeholders.

    “Human smuggling organizations will likely adjust their methods to successfully cross migrants into the United States and will employ social media and encrypted messages to fuel misinformation regarding US enforcement, judging from US government reporting,” the memo, dated December 12, reads.

    The memo focuses on Venezuelan migrants who earlier this fall contributed to a rise in border encounters. Approximately 7 million Venezuelans have fled their country. In September, Venezuelans, Cubans and Nicaraguans accounted for almost half of encounters along the US southern border, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

    Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas underscored the whole of government approach in a statement, noting that mass movement of people around the globe has posed a uniquely difficult challenge.

    “Despite our efforts, our outdated immigration system is under strain; that is true at the federal level, as well as for state, local, NGO, and community partners. In the absence of congressional action to reform the immigration and asylum systems, a significant increase in migrant encounters will strain our system even further,” he said in a statement.

    In October, the administration rolled out a humanitarian parole program geared toward Venezuelans to encourage them to apply for entry into the United States instead of crossing unlawfully. Officials have since attributed a drop in crossings of Venezuelan migrants to that program. Those who did not apply were returned to Mexico under Title 42.

    The administration, meanwhile, is considering expanding the parole program to nationalities, including Haitians, Nicaraguans and Cubans, according to two Homeland Security officials, to try to stem the flow of migration from those countries.

    But the calculus of migrants may change when Title 42 lifts, the memo says.

    “With Title 42 ending, Venezuelan migrants who previously considered returning to Venezuela or remaining in third countries to apply for legal pathways to enter the United States will likely recalculate their decision and transit north to the US Southwest border,” the memo says, noting that transit countries like Costa Rica, Mexico and Panama are already under strain.

    The memo states that while migrants continue to travel, numbers are “unlikely to rebound over the next month to early October numbers if migrants believe they will be returned to Mexico.”

    CNN previously reported that DHS is preparing for multiple scenarios, including projections of between 9,000 to 14,000 migrants a day, more than double the current number of people crossing.

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  • Mexico to make last-ditch effort to solve US corn dispute

    Mexico to make last-ditch effort to solve US corn dispute

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    MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s foreign secretary has announced he will travel to Washington, D.C., on Friday in a last-ditch effort to resolve a dispute over imports of U.S. corn before a scheduled visit next month by U.S. President Joe Biden.

    Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said Monday that he will travel to the U.S. capital with other Mexican officials to try to find “points of agreement on genetically modified corn and other issues.”

    The leaders of Canada, Mexico and the United States are scheduled to meet in Mexico City on Jan. 9-10.

    Mexico sparked the dispute when it announced plans to ban imports of GM corn for human consumption and perhaps eventually for animal feed as well.

    Mexico cites health concerns, but such a trade restriction could violate the U.S.-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement. Mexico has been importing U.S. GM feed corn for years, buying about $3 billion worth annually, and is the single biggest export market for U.S. corn.

    Mexico hopes to stave off a full-fledged trade complaint under the agreement on that issue as well as a dispute over Mexico’s energy sector.

    The United States says Mexico is unfairly favoring its state-owned electricity and oil companies over American competitors and clean-energy suppliers. Canada also has joined in that complaint.

    The U.S. initially requested talks in July, but they have so far not yielded any solution. The United States could demand an arbitration panel, and the dispute could end in trade sanctions against Mexico.

    López Obrador exchanged letters with Biden on Monday, to mark the 200th anniversary of the two nations establishing diplomatic relations in 1822, following Mexico’s independence from Spain.

    In his letter, López Obrador proposed that both nations agree on a “plan for import replacements, so that in the whole continent of North America, we produce everything we consume.”

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  • NASA’s Orion capsule returning from moon to cap test flight

    NASA’s Orion capsule returning from moon to cap test flight

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    CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA’s Orion capsule and its test dummies hurtled toward Earth on Sunday to end a 25-day test flight around the moon.

    Flight controllers targeted a splashdown in the Pacific just off the coast of Mexico’s Baja Peninsula. A Navy recovery ship was positioned within a few miles (kilometers) of the intended site.

    Orion rocketed to the moon from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Nov. 16 and spent nearly a week in a wide, swooping lunar orbit, before heading home. The $4 billion demo should allow astronauts to strap in for the next lunar flyby in a couple of years.

    Orion’s super fast and hot return coincided with the 50th anniversary of humanity’s last lunar landing, by Apollo 17’s Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt on Dec. 11, 1972. This was the first capsule to visit the moon since then.

    NASA’s Apollo landed 12 astronauts on the moon. Under this new Artemis program, named after Apollo’s twin sister in Greek mythology, astronauts could be back on the lunar surface as early as 2025.

    ———

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Strong 6.0-magnitude earthquake shakes southern Mexico

    Strong 6.0-magnitude earthquake shakes southern Mexico

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    MEXICO CITY — A strong 6.0-magnitude earthquake shook southern Mexico Sunday morning, sending nervous residents of the capital into the street.

    The United States Geological Survey said the earthquake’s epicenter was 2½ miles (4 kilometers) northwest of Corral Falso in the southern state of Guerrero. The area sits along Mexico’s Pacific coast between the beach resorts of Acapulco and Zihuatenejo.

    There were no immediate reports of damage. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said via Twitter that civil defense was checking for damage.

    López Obrador later posted a video on Twitter of a live conversation with Guerrero Gov. Evelyn Salgado in which she said there were no reports of damages or casualties.

    Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said there were no reports of incidents in the capital.

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