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Tag: Nicaragua

  • Judge voids decision to end legal status of 60,000 immigrants from Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua

    A federal judge in California on Wednesday voided the Trump administration’s move to terminate the Temporary Protected Status of roughly 60,000 immigrants from Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua, calling it a “pre-ordained decision.”

    Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced the termination of the TPS programs for Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua in June and July, saying the three countries had recovered from the environmental disasters that prompted the U.S. government to grant their nationals temporary legal refuge.

    Created by Congress in 1990, the TPS policy allows the U.S. government to give certain foreigners deportation protections and work permits, temporarily, if their native countries are facing armed conflict, an environmental disaster or another emergency that makes their return unsafe. 

    In late July, U.S. District Court Judge Trina Thompson delayed the termination of the TPS programs for Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua, issuing a preliminary finding that the Trump administration failed to consider lingering problems in three nations and that the decision to terminate the policies was motivated by racial animus, or racial hostility. That ruling was paused in August by an appeals court, allowing the Trump administration to end the programs. 

    But Thompson issued a summary judgment on Wednesday, finding that the effort to revoke the legal status of tens of thousands of Hondurans, Nepalis and Nicaraguans was unlawful. She said Noem’s move “was preordained and pretextual rather than based on an objective review of the country conditions as required by the TPS statute and the (Administrative Procedures Act).”

    “The record specifically reflects that, before taking office, the Secretary made a pre-ordained decision to end TPS and influenced the conditions review process to facilitate TPS terminations for Honduras, Nicaragua, and Nepal,” Thompson wrote in her order.

    The TPS designations for Honduras and Nicaragua were first created in the late 1990s, after the devastation caused by Hurricane Mitch, which killed thousands in Central America. Many of those previously enrolled in those programs arrived in the U.S. more than two decades ago. The TPS policy for Nepal was established in 2015, following a deadly earthquake in the small Asian nation.

    The Trump administration has mounted an aggressive effort to dismantle most TPS programs, arguing the policy attracts illegal immigration and that it has been abused by Democratic administrations and extended for far too long. It has also moved to terminate TPS protections for hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Haiti, Myanmar, Sudan, Syria and Venezuela.

    In a statement, Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin called the judge’s ruling “another lawless and activist order from the federal judiciary who continues to usurp the President’s constitutional authority.”

    “Under the previous administration Temporary Protected Status was abused to allow violent terrorists, criminals, and national security threats into our nation,” McLaughlin said. “TPS was never designed to be permanent, yet previous administrations have used it as a de facto amnesty program for decades. Given the improved situation in each of these countries, now is the right time to conclude what was always intended to be a temporary designation.”

    Ahilan Arulanantham, co-director of the UCLA Center for Immigration Law and Policy, said Wednesday’s ruling should allow TPS holders from Honduras, Nicaragua and Nepal to work in the U.S. legally and prevent federal immigration officials from detaining and deporting them.

    “The court’s decision today restores TPS protections for thousands of long-term law-abiding TPS-holding residents from Honduras, Nepal, and Nicaragua,” Arulanantham said.

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  • Curaçao makes soccer history as smallest nation by population to qualify for a World Cup

    KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) — The tiny Caribbean island country Curaçao will go to the 2026 World Cup as the smallest nation by population ever to qualify for the marquee event in men’s soccer.

    Curaçao, an autonomous territory of about 156,000 people within the Netherlands kingdom, takes the record of Iceland, with a population of just over 350,000, which was the previous smallest country to reach the World Cup when it qualified for Russia 2018.

    A team relying heavily on players born and raised in the Netherlands rode its luck Tuesday to take a 0-0 draw in Jamaica and finish top of a four-team group. Its other opponents were Trinidad and Tobago and last-place Bermuda.

    Curaçao has actively recruited from its diaspora, getting permission from FIFA within world soccer’s rules to change the national-team eligibility of players who once represented the Netherlands at youth or Under-21 level, including five since August.

    Defender Joshua Brenet even played a World Cup qualifying game for the Netherlands in 2016.

    Tahith Chong, a former Manchester United youth player, is one of the few squad members born in Curaçao, which was called Netherlands Antilles until getting its autonomy 15 years ago.

    A storied Dutch coach has led Curaçao on to the elite stage for the first expanded 48-team World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

    Haiti scored a decisive victory against Nicaragua on Tuesday, securing a place in the 2026 Soccer World Cup. (AP/ Pierre Luxama)

    Dick Advocaat, at age 78, is set to lead his third team at a World Cup, and his second in the U.S. He took his native Netherlands to the quarterfinals at the 1994 edition and coached South Korea at the 2006 World Cup in Germany.

    Curaçao’s adventure is set to put players from unheralded clubs on the biggest stage. The squad that clinched qualification included players from Rotherham in England’s third-tier league, Bandırmaspor in the Turkish second division and Abha in Saudi Arabia.

    Curaçao got the historic result despite not having Advocaat on the bench. He missed the match in Jamaica because he had to return to the Netherlands last weekend for family reasons.

    His team saw Jamaica strike the woodwork three times in the second half in Kingston. A potentially decisive penalty kick awarded to the home team in stoppage time was overturned after a video review.

    Curaçao will be joined by regional neighbors Panama and Haiti, which also booked their World Cup spots Tuesday.

    Panama advanced to its second World Cup after defeating El Salvador 3-0 on first-half goals from César Blackman and Eric Davis, plus Jose Luis Rodriguez late in the game.

    Panama’s only previous World Cup appearance was in 2018. It overtook Suriname, another Dutch-influenced team, which started play atop the group before losing 3-1 against Guatemala.

    Haiti, a troubled Caribbean country, had a surprising campaign and beat Nicaragua 2-0 to win its group over favorites Honduras and Costa Rica, which was a quarterfinalist at the 2014 World Cup.

    Haiti’s only previous trip to the World Cup was in West Germany in 1974.

    The Caribbean and central American results Tuesday also finalized the six teams which will take part in the intercontinental playoffs in Mexico in March.

    Two teams will qualify from the playoffs, which includes Jamaica and Suriname, plus Iraq from Asia, Congo from Africa, Bolivia from South America and New Caledonia from Oceania.

    ___

    AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

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  • Federal Judge Holds Pivotal Hearing on Termination of TPS for 60,000 Immigrants from Honduras, Nepal, and Nicaragua

    On Tuesday, Nov. 18, advocates, families, and community leaders gathered outside the Phillip Burton Federal Courthouse as a federal judge considered the legality of the Trump administration’s termination of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 60,000 longtime U.S. residents from Honduras, Nepal, and Nicaragua. The hearing in NTPSA II v. Noem marks a decisive moment for TPS holders, most of whom have lived in the United States for more than 25 years under humanitarian protection.

    Earlier this year, despite the district court’s ruling that the terminations were likely unlawful, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit stayed protections issued by the district court and allowed the terminations to take effect, stripping tens of thousands of TPS holders of their lawful status and work authorization.

    At Tuesday’s hearing, the district court considered whether to issue a final judgment that would restore protections for these individuals while the case proceeds. The judge did not make a ruling on the parties’ summary judgment motions but indicated she intended to deny the government’s motion to dismiss the case.

    Outside the court, plaintiffs spoke about how their lives had been impacted by the TPS terminations.

    Inside the courtroom, attorneys presented documents and expert testimony showing that the decisions to end TPS for Honduras, Nicaragua, and Nepal were motivated by politics and bias rather than legal considerations.

    The judge questioned the government’s claims but did not specify when a ruling would be issued.

    Legal representatives emphasized their strong commitment to continuing the fight for TPS holders and their families. TPS recipients expressed fear and uncertainty due to the loss of lawful status, despite their decades-long contributions as workers, homeowners, parents, and vital members of their communities.

    Approximately 60,000 individuals, many of whom arrived in the U.S. in the 1990s, now face the threat of deportation and family separation, and most already are facing severe economic hardship. TPS holders are essential contributors to industries including construction, childcare, healthcare, and disaster recovery. Ending protections would destabilize families and weaken local economies across the country.

    “Families who have lived here legally for decades are now in limbo,” said Francis Garcia of the National TPS Alliance. “Today’s hearing is their chance at justice.”

    This case will determine not only the fate of thousands of TPS holders but also the strength of the United States’ humanitarian commitments and the rule of law. Advocates emphasized that the district court’s earlier findings were clear: the terminations were arbitrary, unlawful, and contrary to the purpose of the TPS program. They called on the court to restore TPS protections and urged Congress and the Trump administration to create a permanent legislative solution for all TPS holders.

    “We are here to defend our families and our futures,” said Jose Palma, closing the press conference. “TPS holders have built their lives in this country. Home is here, and we deserve stability and dignity.”

    The plaintiffs are the National TPS Alliance, which represents hundreds of thousands of TPS holders nationwide; and individual TPS holders from Nicaragua, Honduras, and Nepal who have lost their legal status due to DHS Secretary Noem’s TPS terminations. The plaintiffs are represented by the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), the Center for Immigration Law and Policy (CILP) at UCLA School of Law, the ACLU Foundation of Northern and Southern California, and Haitian Bridge Alliance.

    Atlanta Daily World

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  • Community gathers to honor Suzie Smith, flight nurse killed in helicopter crash

    TO BE OKAY. LAST NIGHT, FIRST RESPONDERS AND FRIENDS AND FAMILY GATHERED TO REMEMBER THE FLIGHT NURSE WHO DIED AFTER THE HELICOPTER CRASH IN SACRAMENTO COUNTY LAST MONTH. UP TO FIVE. WE CELEBRATE THAT FLIGHT NURSE LEAVES BEHIND AN IMPACTFUL LEGACY, WHICH INCLUDES MISSION TRIPS TO NICARAGUA TO HELP KIDS WITH CLEFT LIPS AND PALATES GET TREATMENT AND RECONSTRUCTIVE SURGERIES. SHE AVERAGED ABOUT 100 EMERGENCY FLIGHTS A YEAR WITH REACH MEDICAL LAST DECEMBER. SHE PASSED 3000 FLIGHTS, A TESTAMENT TO THE COUNTLESS LIVES SH

    Community gathers to honor Suzie Smith, flight nurse killed in helicopter crash

    The celebration of life ceremony took place at the Redding Civic Auditorium in Shasta County.

    Updated: 8:01 AM PST Nov 15, 2025

    Editorial Standards ⓘ

    Friends, family, and first responders gathered Friday night to remember Suzie Smith, a flight nurse who died after a helicopter crash on Highway 50 in Sacramento last month.The celebration of life ceremony took place at the Redding Civic Auditorium in Shasta County. Smith leaves behind an impactful legacy, including mission trips to Nicaragua to help children with cleft palates receive reconstructive surgeries. She averaged about 100 emergency flights a year with REACH Medical. Last December, she passed 3,000 career flights, a testament to the countless lives she helped save during her career.See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel

    REDDING, Calif. —

    Friends, family, and first responders gathered Friday night to remember Suzie Smith, a flight nurse who died after a helicopter crash on Highway 50 in Sacramento last month.

    The celebration of life ceremony took place at the Redding Civic Auditorium in Shasta County.

    Smith leaves behind an impactful legacy, including mission trips to Nicaragua to help children with cleft palates receive reconstructive surgeries.

    She averaged about 100 emergency flights a year with REACH Medical.

    Last December, she passed 3,000 career flights, a testament to the countless lives she helped save during her career.

    See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel

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  • UN report: Nicaragua’s human rights crisis deepens

    MEXICO CITY (AP) — A new United Nations report details a Nicaragua tightly in the grasp of co-Presidents Daniel Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo, where the legislative and judicial branches answer to the executive and basic human rights protections are gone.

    Little of that will come as a surprise to the tens of thousands of Nicaraguans who have the fled country in recent years, but the report of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights discusses the Central American country’s continuing deterioration in the starkest terms.

    The report scheduled to be presented in Geneva Tuesday, was compiled from more than 200 interviews with victims, witnesses and other sources. The U.N. human rights office does not have access to Nicaragua and the government did not respond to its questionnaire.

    A major constitutional reform adopted in January reduces “the legislative and judicial branches to entities coordinated by and subordinated to the presidency,” while the public prosecutor’s office “was placed under direct presidential control,” the report said.

    The U.N. denounced “the constitutional recognition of paramilitary forces, the institutionalized use of informant networks and surveillance and the misapplication of criminal offenses.”

    “Such frameworks have created a context in which any person perceived as opposing the authorities may be subjected to retaliation,” the report said.

    Andrés Sánchez Thorin, the U.N. Human Rights Office representative in Central America, said Ortega and Murillo had essentially wiped out Nicaraguan civil society.

    “Since 2018, eight of every 10 organizations have been canceled or had to close, many of them religious and their assets confiscated,” he said. “Add to this a reform to the electoral system that puts political pluralism in serious danger, and with it, people’s fundamental right to participate in the democratic life of the country.”

    The crackdown started with violent government repression of 2018 protests that left more than 300 dead and led to an exodus of journalists and civil society. Ortega has framed those protests as an attempted coup with foreign backing.

    Since then, the Nicaraguan government “has deliberately transformed the country into an authoritarian state,” U.N. experts said in February.

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  • FACT FOCUS: A look at false claims made by Trump in California

    FACT FOCUS: A look at false claims made by Trump in California

    In a press conference from his Los Angeles-area golf club, former President Donald Trump revisited several topics from Tuesday night’s debate, repeating several false and misleading claims on issues including crime, the economy and immigration.

    Here’s are the facts:

    Trump again falsely claims crime skyrocketed under the Biden administration

    CLAIM: New numbers show that crime has skyrocketed under the Biden administration.

    THE FACTS: Violent crime surged during the pandemic, with homicides increasing nearly 30% in 2020 over the previous year — the largest one-year jump since the FBI began keeping records.

    But FBI data released in June shows that the overall violent crime rate declined 15% in the first three months of 2024 compared to the same period last year. One expert has cautioned, however, that those figures are preliminary and may overstate the actual reduction in crime.

    On Friday, Trump cited numbers he said were from the “bureau of justice statistics” to claim crime was up. This appears to be a reference to the National Crime Victimization Survey recently released by the Justice Department, which shows that the number of times people were victims of violent crime increased by about 40% from 2020 to 2023. The report notes, however, that while the rate of violent victimizations in 2023 was higher than it was in 2020 and 2021, it was not statistically different from the rate in 2019, when Trump was president.

    That survey aims to capture both crimes reported to police and crimes that are not reported to police and is conducted annually through interviews with about 150,000 households. It doesn’t include murders or crimes against people under the age of 12.

    No basis for claims that violent crime has spiked as a result of the influx of migrants

    CLAIM: Thousands of people are being killed by “illegal migrants” in the U.S.

    THE FACTS: This is not supported by evidence. FBI statistics do not separate crimes by the immigration status of the assailant, nor is there any evidence of a spike in crime perpetrated by migrants, either along the U.S.-Mexico border or in cities seeing the greatest influx of migrants, like New York. In fact, national statistics show violent crime is on the way down.

    Inflation has not reached record levels

    CLAIM: Prices have gone up “like no one’s ever seen before.”

    THE FACTS: That’s not accurate. Inflation did soar in 2021-22, though it rose by much more in 1980 when inflation topped 14%. It peaked at 9.1% in June 2022.

    Economists largely blame the inflation spike on the pandemic’s disruptions to global supply chains, which reduced the supply of semiconductors, cars and other goods. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine also pushed up gas and food prices. And Biden’s stimulus checks and other spending contributed by turbocharging spending coming out of the pandemic.

    Inflation has now fallen to 2.5%, not far from the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. Prices are still about 19% higher than they were before the pandemic, but the Census Bureau reported Tuesday that household incomes have risen by a similar amount, leaving inflation-adjusted incomes at roughly the same level as they were in 2019.

    Trump raises false claims to suggest voting systems are fraudulent

    CLAIM: The voting system isn’t honest. Millions and millions of ballots are sent out “all over the place. Some people get two, three, four or five.”

    THE FACTS: Election officials have procedures in place to ensure that only one mail ballot is issued to each eligible voter. When a voter requests a mail ballot, election officials will verify that person’s eligibility by checking voter registration records — looking to match the voter’s information to what’s on file and, in some cases, checking that the voter’s signature matches as well.

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    When a ballot is sent out by an election office, that ballot is assigned to that specific voter. If someone else tries to use that ballot, the voter’s information will not match the office’s records for that ballot and it will be rejected. Election officials constantly update their voter lists to ensure they are accurate, removing dead people, those who have moved out of state or are not eligible.

    In some cases, ballots are canceled — if a voter makes a mistake and requests a new ballot or decides to vote in person instead of using a mail ballot. In those cases, the original ballot is marked in such a way that if that original ballot were to show up at the election office it would be flagged and rejected.

    At one point in his remarks, Trump singled out California, where all voters receive a ballot in the mail. He suggested he would win if votes were counted honestly. He has made this claim before and it is a reach. Just 23% of California voters are registered as Republican while 46% are registered as Democrats. He lost to Hillary Clinton in 2016 in California by 4.2 million votes, and he lost the state to Biden in 2020 by 5.1 million votes.

    Trump misrepresents a revision of U.S. job numbers

    CLAIM: A whistleblower forced the government’s recent downward revision of job gains by 818,000.

    THE FACTS: That’s false. The preliminary revision occurred as part of a normal annual process and was released on a previously disclosed date. Every year the Labor Department issues a revision of the number of jobs added during a 12-month period from April through March in the previous year.

    The adjustment is made because the government’s initial job counts are based on surveys of businesses. The revision is then based on actual job counts from unemployment insurance files that are compiled later. The revision is compiled by career government employees with little involvement by politically appointed officials.

    The Biden administration is not secretly flying hundreds of thousands of migrants into the country

    CLAIM: Harris and the Biden administration are secretly flying in hundreds of thousands of “illegal immigrants.”

    THE FACTS: Migrants are not secretly being flown into the U.S. by the government. Under a Biden policy in effect since January 2023, up to 30,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela can enter the country monthly if they apply online with a financial sponsor and arrive at a specified airport, paying their own way. Biden exercised his “parole” authority, which, under a 1952 law, allows him to admit people “only on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.”

    ___ Associated Press writers Alanna Durkin Richer, Chris Rugaber, Christina Almeida Cassidy and Elliot Spagat contributed to this story.

    ___

    AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.

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  • FACT FOCUS: A look at claims made by Trump at news conference

    FACT FOCUS: A look at claims made by Trump at news conference

    In his first news conference since Vice President Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee for president, former President Donald Trump said he would debate her on Sept. 10 and pushed for two more debates. The Republican presidential nominee spoke for more than an hour, discussing a number of issues facing the country and then taking questions from reporters. He made a number of false and misleading claims. Many of them have been made before.

    Here’s a look at some of those claims.

    CROWD SIZES

    FILE – Crowds are shown in front of the Washington Monument during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Aug. 28, 1963, in Washington. (AP Photo, File)

    CLAIM: “The biggest crowd I’ve ever spoken — I’ve spoken to the biggest crowds. Nobody’s spoken to crowds bigger than me. If you look at Martin Luther King when he did his speech, his great speech, and you look at ours, same real estate, same everything, same number of people, if not we had more. And they said he had a million people, but I had 25,000 people.”

    THE FACTS: Trump was comparing the crowd at his speech in front of the White House on Jan. 6, 2021, to the crowd that attended Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech on Aug. 28, 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial.

    But far more people are estimated to have been at the latter than the former.

    Approximately 250,000 people attended the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, at which King gave his speech, according to the National Park Service. The Associated Press reported in 2021 that there were at least 10,000 people at Trump’s address.

    Moreover, Trump and King did not speak in the same location. King spoke from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, which looks east toward the Washington Monument. Trump spoke at the Ellipse, a grassy area just south of the White House.

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    JAN. 6

    CLAIM: “Nobody was killed on Jan. 6.”

    THE FACTS: That’s false. Five people died in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot and its immediate aftermath. Pro-Trump rioters breached the U.S. Capitol that day amid Congress’ effort to certify Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.

    Among the deceased are Ashli Babbitt, a Trump supporter shot and killed by police, and Brian Sicknick, a police officer who died the day after battling the mob. Four additional officers who responded to the riot killed themselves in the following weeks and months.

    Babbitt, a 35-year-old Air Force veteran from San Diego, was shot and killed by a police officer as she climbed through a broken part of a Capitol door during the violent riot. Trump has often cited Babbitt’s death while lamenting the treatment of those who attended a rally outside the White House that day and then marched to the Capitol, many of whom fought with police.

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    DEMOCRATIC NOMINATION

    Image

    Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks to reporters during a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate Thursday, Aug. 8, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

    CLAIM: “The presidency was taken away from Joe Biden, and I’m no Biden fan, but I tell you what, from a constitutional standpoint, from any standpoint you look at, they took the presidency away.”

    THE FACTS: There is nothing in the Constitution that prevents the Democratic Party from making Vice President Kamala Harris its nominee. That process is determined by the Democratic National Committee.

    Harris officially claimed the nomination Monday following a five-day online voting process, receiving 4,563 delegate votes out of 4,615 cast, or about 99% of participating delegates. A total of 52 delegates in 18 states cast their votes for “present,” the only other option on the ballot.

    The vice president was the only candidate eligible to receive votes after no other candidate qualified by the party’s deadline following President Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the race on July 21.

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    ___

    THE ECONOMY

    CLAIM: Suggesting things would be different if he had been in office rather than Biden: “You wouldn’t have had inflation. You wouldn’t have had any inflation because inflation was caused by their bad energy problems. Now they’ve gone back to the Trump thing because they need the votes. They’re drilling now because they had to go back because gasoline was going up to 7, 8, 9 dollars a barrel.”

    THE FACTS: There would have been at least some inflation if Trump had been reelected in 2020 because many of the factors causing inflation were outside a president’s control. Prices spiked in 2021 after cooped-up Americans ramped up their spending on goods such as exercise bikes and home office furniture, overwhelming disrupted supply chains. U.S. auto companies, for example, couldn’t get enough semiconductors and had to sharply reduce production, causing new and used car prices to shoot higher. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in March 2022 also sent gas and food prices soaring around the world, as Ukraine’s wheat exports were disrupted and many nations boycotted Russian oil and gas.

    Still, under Biden, U.S. oil production reached a worldwide record level earlier this year.

    Many economists, including some Democrats, say Biden’s $1.9 trillion financial support package, approved in March 2021, which provided a $1,400 stimulus check to most Americans, helped fuel inflation by ramping up demand. But it didn’t cause inflation all by itself. And Trump supported $2,000 stimulus checks in December 2020, rather than the $600 checks included in a package he signed into law in December 2020.

    Prices still spiked in countries with different policies than Biden’s, such as France, Germany and the U.K., though mostly because of the sharp increase in energy costs stemming from Russia’s invasion.

    ___

    IMMIGRATION

    Image

    Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks to reporters during a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate Thursday, Aug. 8, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

    CLAIM: “Twenty million people came over the border during the Biden-Harris administration — 20 million people — and it could be very much higher than that. Nobody really knows.”

    THE FACTS: Trump’s 20 million figure is unsubstantiated at best, and he didn’t provide sources.

    U.S. Customs and Border Protection reports 7.1 million arrests for illegal crossings from Mexico from January 2021 through June 2024. That’s arrests, not people. Under pandemic-era asylum restrictions, many people crossed more than once until they succeeded because there were no legal consequences for getting turned back to Mexico. So the number of people is lower than the number of arrests.

    In addition, CBP says it stopped migrants 1.1 million times at official land crossings with Mexico from January 2021 through June 2024, largely under an online appointment system to claim asylum called CBP One.

    U.S. authorities also admitted nearly 500,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela under presidential authority if they had financial sponsors and arrived at an airport.

    All told, that’s nearly 8.7 million encounters. Again, the number of people is lower due to multiple encounters for some.

    There are an unknown number of people who eluded capture, known as “got-aways” in Border Patrol parlance. The Border Patrol estimates how many but doesn’t publish that number.

    ___

    CLAIM: Vice President Kamala Harris “was the border czar 100% and all of a sudden for the last few weeks she’s not the border czar anymore.”

    THE FACTS: Harris was appointed to address “root causes” of migration in Central America. That migration manifests itself in illegal crossings to the U.S., but she was not assigned to the border.

    ___

    NEW YORK CASES

    CLAIM: “The New York cases are totally controlled out of the Department of Justice.”

    THE FACTS: Trump was referring to two cases brought against him in New York — one civil and the other criminal.

    Neither has anything to do with the U.S. Department of Justice.

    The civil case was initiated by a lawsuit from New York Attorney General Letitia James. In that case, Trump was ordered in February to pay a $454 million penalty for lying about his wealth for years as he built the real estate empire that vaulted him to stardom and the White House.

    Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a state-level prosecutor, brought the criminal case. In May, a jury found Trump guilty on 34 felony counts in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush money payment to a porn actor who said the two had sex.

    ___ Associated Press writers Melissa Goldin and Elliot Spagat and economics writer Christopher Rugaber contributed to this article. ___

    Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.

    __

    An earlier version of this story mixed up “latter” and “former” in the third paragraph. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech on Aug. 28, 1963, drew a far larger crowd than Donald Trump’s speech near the White House on Jan. 6, 2021.

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  • Police charge director of Miss Nicaragua pageant with running 'beauty queen coup' plot

    Police charge director of Miss Nicaragua pageant with running 'beauty queen coup' plot

    MEXICO CITY (AP) — Nicaraguan police said Friday they want to arrest the director of the Miss Nicaragua pageant, accusing her of intentionally rigging contests so that anti-government beauty queens would win the pageants as part of a plot to overthrow the government.

    The charges against pageant director Karen Celebertti would not be out of place in a vintage James Bond movie with a repressive, closed off government, coup-plotting claims, foreign agents and beauty queens.

    It all started Nov. 18, when Miss Nicaragua, Nicaragua’s Sheynnis Palacios won the Miss Universe competition. The government of President Daniel Ortega briefly thought it had scored a rare public relations victory, calling her win a moment of “legitimate joy and pride.”

    But the tone quickly soured the day after the win when it emerged that Palacios had posted photos of herself on Facebook participating in one of the mass anti-government protests in 2018.

    The protests were violently repressed, and human rights officials say 355 people were killed by government forces. Ortega claimed the protests were an attempted coup with foreign backing, aiming for his overthrow. His opponents said Nicaraguans were protesting his increasingly repressive rule and seemingly endless urge to hold on to power.

    A statement by the National Police claimed Celebertti “participated actively, on the internet and in the streets in the terrorist actions of a failed coup,” an apparent reference to the 2018 protests.

    Celebertti apparently slipped through the hands of police after she was reportedly denied permission to enter the country a few days ago. But some local media reported that her son and husband had been taken into custody.

    Celebertti, her husband and son face charges of “treason to the motherland.” They have not spoken publicly about the charges against them.

    Celebertti “remained in contact with the traitors, and offered to employ the franchises, platforms and spaces supposedly used to promote ‘innocent’ beauty pageants, in a conspiracy orchestrated to convert the contests into traps and political ambushes financed by foreign agents,” according to the statement.

    It didn’t help that many ordinary Nicaraguans — who are largely forbidden to protest or carry the national flag in marches — took advantage of the Miss Universe win as a rare opportunity to celebrate in the streets.

    Their use of the blue-and-white national flag, as opposed to Ortega’s red-and-black Sandinista banner, further angered the government, who claimed the plotters “would take to the streets again in December, in a repeat of history’s worst chapter of vileness.”

    Just five days after Palacio’s win, Vice President and First Lady Rosario Murillo was lashing out at opposition social media sites (many run from exile) that celebrated Palacios’ win as a victory for the opposition.

    “In these days of a new victory, we are seeing the evil, terrorist commentators making a clumsy and insulting attempt to turn what should be a beautiful and well-deserved moment of pride into destructive coup-mongering,” Murillo said.

    Ortega’s government seized and closed the Jesuit University of Central America in Nicaragua, which was a hub for 2018 protests against the Ortega regime, along with at least 26 other Nicaraguan universities.

    The government has also outlawed or closed more than 3,000 civic groups and non-governmental organizations, arrested and expelled opponents, stripped them of their citizenship and confiscated their assets. Thousands have fled into exile.

    Palacios, who became the first Nicaraguan to win Miss Universe, has not commented on the situation.

    During the contest, Palacios, 23, said she wants to work to promote mental health after suffering debilitating bouts of anxiety herself. She also said she wants to work to close the salary gap between the genders.

    But on a since-deleted Facebook account under her name, Palacios posted photos of herself at a protest, writing she had initially been afraid of participating. “I didn’t know whether to go, I was afraid of what might happen.”

    Some who attended the march that day recall seeing the tall, striking Palacios there.

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  • Nicaragua’s Miss Universe Title Win Exposes Deep Political Divide In The Central American Country

    Nicaragua’s Miss Universe Title Win Exposes Deep Political Divide In The Central American Country

    MEXICO CITY (AP) — Nicaragua’s increasingly isolated and repressive government thought it had scored a rare public relations victory last week when Miss Nicaragua Sheynnis Palacios won the Miss Universe competition.

    But the “legitimate joy and pride” President Daniel Ortega’s government expressed in a statement Sunday after the win quickly turned to angry condemnation, after it emerged that Palacios graduated from a college that was the center of 2018 protests against the regime — and apparently participated in the marches.

    Ordinary Nicaraguans — who are largely forbidden to protest or carry the national flag in marches — took advantage of the Saturday night Miss Universe win as a rare opportunity to celebrate in the streets.

    Their use of the blue-and-white national flag, as opposed to Ortega’s red-and-black Sandinista banner, didn’t sit well with the government.

    Miss Nicaragua Sheynnis Palacios reacts after being crowned Miss Universe at the 72nd Miss Universe Beauty Pageant in San Salvador, El Salvador, Saturday, Nov. 18, 2023. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

    Palacios’ victory — along with photos she posted on Facebook in 2018 of herself participating in the protests — overjoyed Nicaragua’s opposition.

    Roman Catholic Rev. Silvio Báez, one of dozens of priests who have been jailed or forced into exile by the government, congratulated Palacios in his social media accounts.

    “Thank you for bringing joy to our long-suffering country!,” Báez wrote. “Thank you for giving us hope for a better future for our beautiful country!”

    With clunky rhetoric reminiscent of North Korea, Vice president and First Lady Rosario Murillo lashed out Wednesday at opposition social media sites (many run from exile) that celebrated Palacios’ win as a victory for the opposition.

    “In these days of a new victory, we are seeing the evil, terrorist commentators making a clumsy and insulting attempt to turn what should be a beautiful and well-deserved moment of pride into destructive coup-mongering,” Murillo said.

    Thousands have fled into exile since Nicaraguan security forces violently put down mass anti-government protests in 2018. Ortega says the protests were an attempted coup with foreign backing, aiming for his overthrow.

    Ortega’s government seized and closed the Jesuit University of Central America in Nicaragua, which was a hub for 2018 protests against the Ortega regime, along with at least 26 other Nicaraguan universities.

    A masked demonstrator attends a protest outside the Jesuit run Universidad Centroamericana, UCA, demanding the university's allocation of its share of 6% of the national budget, in Managua, Nicaragua, Thursday, Aug. 2, 2018. (AP Photo/Arnulfo Franco)
    A masked demonstrator attends a protest outside the Jesuit run Universidad Centroamericana, UCA, demanding the university’s allocation of its share of 6% of the national budget, in Managua, Nicaragua, Thursday, Aug. 2, 2018. (AP Photo/Arnulfo Franco)

    The government has also outlawed or closed more than 3,000 civic groups and non-governmental organizations, arrested and expelled opponents, stripped them of their citizenship and confiscated their assets.

    Palacios, who became the first Nicaraguan to win Miss Universe, has not commented on the situation.

    During the contest, Palacios, 23, said she wants to work to promote mental health after suffering debilitating bouts of anxiety herself. She also said she wants to work to close the salary gap between the genders so that women can work in any area.

    But on a since-deleted Facebook account under her name, Palacios posted photos of herself at a protest, writing she had initially been afraid of participating. “I didn’t know whether to go, I was afraid of what might happen.”

    Some who attended the march that day recall seeing the tall, striking Palacios there.

    The protests were quickly put down and in the end, human rights officials say 355 people were killed by government forces.

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  • Nicaragua seizes Catholic university accused of being ‘centre of terrorism’

    Nicaragua seizes Catholic university accused of being ‘centre of terrorism’

    The Nicaraguan government has seized a prominent Jesuit-run university in the capital Managua, in President Daniel Ortega’s latest effort to lash out against the Catholic Church.

    The Central American University (UCA) announced on Wednesday that all classes and administrative activities were suspended after a criminal court ruled its property and financial accounts were being transferred to the government.

    The Society of Jesus, the Jesuit order that runs the school, told reporters that the government had accused the university of being “a centre of terrorism organised by criminal groups”.

    United Nations denounces seizure

    In the wake of the announcement, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) issued a statement condemning the university’s confiscation.

    “The impact of this measure with the suspension of classes seriously affects the right to education, which is essential for the fulfilment of other human rights,” the OHCHR wrote.

    The agency called on Nicaragua to respect its obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which protects the right to education.

    Other critics of Ortega, a longtime leader in the Sandinista movement, also spoke out against the university’s closure on Wednesday.

    “The unjust and illegal confiscation of the UCA by the Sandinista dictatorship is outrageous,” exiled Nicaraguan bishop Silvio Jose Baez wrote on social media.

    “In this way, they demonstrate their contempt for intellectual freedom, quality education and critical thinking. Every day, they sink deeper into their irrationality, their wickedness and their fear.”

    Another exiled Nicaraguan, historian Dora Maria Tellez, also denounced the move as an act of “dictatorship”.

    “The university with the highest academic quality in the country has been liquidated,” Tellez, an alumna, said. But, she added, the classrooms will open again when the country is free.

    The opposition movement Tellez is a part of – the Union Democratica Renovadora or UNAMOS – released a statement decrying the end of “the last bastion of critical thinking and freedom of education in Nicaragua”.

    Attacks on higher education

    The university’s seizure is part of a pattern under the Ortega administration, which has faced international criticism for its heavy-headed approach to stifling dissent.

    Starting in February 2022, the country’s legislature, dominated by Ortega loyalists, revoked the legal status of several private universities, perceived to be hotbeds for government opposition.

    Other campuses – the overseas branches of foreign universities – were likewise shuttered.

    Those institutions were subsequently placed under state authority through the National Council of Universities.

    Nicaragua’s legislature followed that move with reforms to limit the independence of universities and cut government funding to institutions like the Central American University.

    Critics believe Ortega and his allies have targeted universities for their role in the widespread antigovernment protests that jolted the country in 2018. Proposed cuts to social security brought tens of thousands of protesters into the streets, many of them youth.

    Those young protest leaders often used universities as spaces to organise. The Polytechnic University in the capital Managua – one of the institutions whose legal status was later cancelled – was among the institutions that saw young people occupy its campus, building barricades and amassing medical supplies and equipment.

    Clashes with government forces ultimately left at least 355 people dead over the following year, some of whom were killed at the university itself.

    Catholic Church a target

    Since the 2018 protests, the Ortega administration has ramped up efforts to crack down on its critics by imprisoning political rivals and closing nongovernmental groups.

    The UN estimates more than 3,200 organisations have been forced to shutter between June 2022 and June 2023 alone, including the local branch of the Red Cross.

    Among those institutions are radio stations, schools and other groups associated with the Catholic Church. Ortega has been an outspoken critic of the church, particularly since 2018, when the Catholic leaders attempted to serve as mediators between the government and protesters.

    The talks ultimately floundered, and Ortega has since denounced bishops and priests as “coup plotters” acting on behalf of “American imperialism”.

    In 2022, Ortega expelled the Vatican’s ambassador from Nicaragua, and police arrested a prominent Catholic leader, Bishop Rolando Alvarez, for “destabilising and provocative” activities.

    When Nicaragua flew 222 political prisoners to the United States in February, Alvarez was anticipated to be among the deported. But he refused to board the plane and was subsequently sentenced to 26 years in prison.

    He was also stripped of his Nicaraguan citizenship, as were the political prisoners flown into exile.

    Central American University, the institution targeted on Wednesday, was not only a prominent Catholic institution in Nicaragua, but it was also a springboard for some of the country’s most influential voices.

    Ortega himself briefly attended in the early 1960s to study law.

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  • A wave of political turbulence is rolling through Guatemala and other Central American countries

    A wave of political turbulence is rolling through Guatemala and other Central American countries

    MEXICO CITY (AP) — Central America is experiencing a wave of unrest that is remarkable even for a region whose history is riddled with turbulence. The most recent example is political upheaval in Guatemala as the country heads for a runoff presidential election in August.

    A look at various events roiling Central American countries:

    Guatemala

    Costa Rica and the U.S. government have agreed to open potential legal pathways to the United States for some of the Nicaraguan and Venezuelan migrants among the 240,000 asylum seekers already awaiting asylum in the Central American country.

    Chinese migrants line up to take a boat to Lajas Blancas after walking across the Darien Gap in Bajo Chiquito, Panama, Sunday, May 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

    Despite a dissuasion campaign by the U.S. government, migrants are headed toward its southern border in growing numbers ahead of the end of pandemic-era asylum restrictions and proposed new restrictions on those seeking asylum.

    FILE - Police officer run a checkpoint set up in the nightclubs and bar zone of San Jose, Costa Rica, Jan 27, 2023. According to authorities, the Central American nation has reached its highest murder rate since the Organization of Judicial Investigation office has kept records. (AP Photo/Carlos Gonzalez, File)

    Costa Rica’s president is promising to put more police in the streets and he wants legal changes to confront record-setting numbers of homicides that have shaken daily life in a country long known for peaceful stability.

    Guatemala is locked in the most troubled presidential election in the country’s recent history. The first round of elections in June ended with a surprise twist when little known progressive candidate Bernardo Arévalo of the Seed Movement party pulled ahead as a front-runner.

    Now headed to an August runoff election with conservative candidate and top vote-getter Sandra Torres, Arévalo has thus far managed to survive judicial attacks and attempts by Guatemala’s political establishment to disqualify his party. It comes after other moves by the country’s government to manage the election, including banning several candidates before the first-round vote.

    While not entirely unprecedented in a country known for high levels of corruption, American officials call the latest escalation a threat to the country’s democracy.

    El Salvador

    El Salvador has been radically transformed in the past few years with the entrance of populist millennial President Nayib Bukele. One year ago, Bukele entered an all-out war with the Barrio 18 and Mara Salvatruchas, or MS-13, gangs. He suspended constitutional rights and threw 1 in every 100 people in the country into prisons that have fueled allegations of mass human rights abuses.

    The sharp dip in violence that followed Bukele’s actions, combined with an elaborate propaganda machine, has ignited a pro-Bukele populist fervor across the region, with other governments trying to mimic the Bitcoin-pushing leader.

    At the same time, Bukele has announced he will run for reelection in February next year despite the constitution prohibiting it. He has also made moves that observers warn are gradually dismantling the nation’s democracy.

    Nicaragua

    President Daniel Ortega is in an all-out crackdown on dissent. For years, regional watchdogs and the U.S. government raised alarms that democracy was eroding under the leader of the Sandinista National Liberation Front. That came to a head in 2018 when Ortega’s government began a violent crackdown on protests.

    Most recently, Ortega forced hundreds of opposition figures into exile, stripping them of their citizenship, seizing their properties and declaring them “traitors of the homeland.” Nicaragua has thrown out aid groups such as the Red Cross and a yearslong crackdown on the Catholic Church has forced the Vatican to close its embassy. The tightening chokehold on the country has prompted many Nicaraguans to flee their country and seek asylum in neighboring Costa Rica or the United States.

    Honduras

    President Xiomara Castro took office last year as the first female president of Honduras, winning on a message of tackling corruption, inequality and poverty. The wife of former President Manuel Zelaya, who was ousted in a military coup, she won a landslide victory.

    But her popularity has dipped as many of her promises for change have gone unfulfilled. At the same time, the government has sought to mimic neighboring El Salvador’s crackdown on gangs, responding fiercely to a grisly massacre in a women’s prison in June.

    Costa Rica

    Once known as the land of “pura vida” and mild politics compared to the surrounding region, Costa Rica has seen rising bloodshed that threatens to tarnish the country’s reputation as a secure haven. Homicides have soared as the nation has become a base for drug traffickers. President Rodrigo Chavez, who took office last year, has promised more police in the street and tougher laws to take on the uptick in crime.

    At the same time, a migratory flight from Nicaragua has overwhelmed the country, which is known as one of the world’s great refuges for people fleeing persecution. The government has since tightened its asylum laws.

    Panama

    Panama is headed into presidential elections in May, with simmering frustration at economic woes, corruption and insecurity acting as a potential harbinger for change. Any shift could have global significance due to Panama’s status as a financial hub.

    The nation has also become the epicenter of a steady flow of migration through the perilous jungles of the Darien Gap running along the Colombia-Panama border.

    Belize

    Belize is often seen as a place of relative calm in a region that is anything but. A former British colony named British Honduras, Belize’s government system is still tightly tethered to the country. But Prime Minister Johnny Briceño has sought to distance his nation from the monarchy. The nation is also one of the few in the Americas that maintains formal ties with Taiwan amid a broad effort by China to pull support away from the island country by funneling money into Central America.

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  • Russia’s war in Ukraine gatecrashes EU-Latin America reunion

    Russia’s war in Ukraine gatecrashes EU-Latin America reunion

    A row between EU and Latin American countries over how — or even whether — to mention the war in Ukraine risks turning what was meant to be the celebration of a renewed partnership into a diplomatic failure.

    The first day of a summit between the EU and the Community of the Latin American & the Caribbean States (CELAC) was all about affirming strengthened intercontinental ties. But the lofty talk quickly fell flat as EU negotiators tried to convince Latin American countries to condemn Russia over its war in Ukraine. 

    Nicaragua and Cuba vehemently opposed the proposed language on Ukraine, according to three EU officials — with one alleging that these two countries had received calls from Moscow advising them to do so.

    The row in Brussels came just as Russia refused Monday to extend a U.N.-brokered deal that had allowed Ukraine to export its grain surplus through the Black Sea. Both were stark reminders of how Russia’s hybrid geopolitics seeks to drive a wedge between the rich, pro-Ukrainian West and the rest of the world.

    Despite several rounds of negotiations on a joint declaration which leaders could sign off on, there was still no agreement on Monday evening — with some officials fearing that the two-day summit could fail to produce any joint declaration at all. 

    “I confirm that we are still discussing the text of the communiqué,” said European Council President Charles Michel on Monday afternoon, in an attempt at damage control. “And it means something. It means that we want on both sides an ambitious text.” 

    An EU diplomat said at the end of Monday’s meeting that “negotiations will go down to the finishing line.” Haggling over the text “does not put the summit into jeopardy — for now.”

    Credibility on the line

    Failing to agree a joint declaration would deal a blow to the EU’s credibility at a time when it is seeking to unify voices at the U.N. and beyond in support of Ukraine against a belligerent Russia. Brussels is also trying to become best buddies with Latin America again in the face of an assertive China that is winning market share on the other side of the Atlantic.

    “If Russia were to lay down its arms, there would be peace. If Ukraine were to lay down its arms, there would be no more Ukraine,” said Latvian Prime Minister Krišjānis Kariņs, whose country borders Russia. 

    “Maybe from a more distant area, it’s not so obvious to understand,” Kariņš added in a clear dig at CELAC countries.

    Latest versions of the documents, seen by POLITICO dated July 7 and July 13, showed that the language on Ukraine had been watered down, going from “strongly” condemning Moscow’s “violating” Ukraine’s sovereignty, to just “expressing concern” on the war in Ukraine. 

    Asked about the holdup, Honduran Foreign Minister Enrique Reina said: “I believe that it is part of this process to find, in this dialogue, a way out that respects the visions of both the EU and CELAC and each of its members.”

    Ukraine was not the only contentious issue, with the draft communiqué resembling a shopping list, after each capital pushed to mention their national priorities, such as colonial reparations or the Malvinas islands, over which Argentina and the United Kingdom — which is no longer an EU member — fought a short war 40 years ago.

    Barbara Moens contributed reporting.

    Camille Gijs, Sarah Anne Aarup and Hans von der Burchard

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  • Why Latin America still won’t condemn Putin’s war in Ukraine

    Why Latin America still won’t condemn Putin’s war in Ukraine

    Press play to listen to this article

    Voiced by artificial intelligence.

    The ghosts of colonial history returned to haunt European and Latin American leaders at their summit in Brussels.

    For the guests, four hundred years of European colonial rule, economic exploitation and slavery was front of mind. For the hosts, it was Russia’s war on Ukraine in the here and now. 

    The divergence in views was so profound that the two sides struggled to align their thinking at their first summit in eight years — especially to find words to condemn Russia’s war of aggression in their closing communiqué.

    That made the two-day gathering frustrating for all concerned — but especially for leaders of the EU’s newest member states from Eastern Europe, which have their own bitter memories of Soviet imperial rule and Russian aggression.

    “It is actually a war of colonization,” Latvian Prime Minister Krišjānis Kariņš said of the 16-month-old Ukraine conflict. 

    “There is a former colonizer, Russia, and a former colony, Ukraine. And the former overlord is trying to take back their one-time possession. I think that many countries around the world can relate to that.”

    Despite the pre-summit rhetoric highlighting the two continents’ shared values, EU leaders struggled to persuade the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) — which includes traditional allies of Moscow such as Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela — to clearly condemn Russia’s war.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — a regular guest in Brussels — wasn’t invited this time. Wrangling over the wording in their joint declaration delayed the end of the meeting by hours as leaders sought to bridge the gaps. In the end, only Nicaragua dissented.

    “No one intends to lecture anyone,” said European Council President Charles Michel, seeking to placate his guests. “This is not how it works, we have a lot of respect for those countries, for the traditions, for the culture, and the idea is always to engage in a spirit of mutual respect.”

    Four hundred years

    Spain, which holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU, has its eyes on Latin America and likes to emphasize the close cultural and linguistic ties between the two. 

    But those links hark back to Spain — and Europe’s — colonial past. The Spanish kingdom colonized much of Latin America starting in 1493 and, over the next 400 years, acquired vast wealth by exploiting its lands and people. The European slave trade also forcibly transported millions of Africans into slavery in Latin America and the Caribbean.

    While European leaders hoped to ease geopolitical tensions, their Latin American counterparts came to the table with a clear message: Defining relations today means addressing and rectifying past injustices — especially as the EU looks once again to the resource-rich region, this time to power its green transition.

    Saint Vincent and the Grenadines’ Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves | Jean-Christophe Verhaegen/AFP via Getty Images

    The prime minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines — a small island state that heads up the 33-nation group — called for talks on economic reparations for colonization and enslavement. 

    “Resources from the slave trade and from slavery helped to fuel the industrial revolution that has laid the basis for a lot of the wealth within Western Europe,” Ralph Gonsalves told a small group of reporters on Tuesday.

    This was part of his argument for a plan to “to repair the historical legacies of underdevelopment resulting from native genocide and the enslavement of African bodies,” as he said on Monday ahead of the summit.

    Trade tensions

    Trade talks between the EU and Mercosur — which groups four of Latin America’s big economies — also reflected the broader tensions over what it really means for Europe to start afresh in a relationship of equals.

    Beyond a cursory mention of a Mercosur deal in the final statement, talks with Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay were kept on the sidelines despite previous hopes that the summit could inject new energy into negotiations on wrapping up a trade deal.

    European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen did, however, say after the summit that “our ambition is to … conclude [at] the latest by the end of this year.”

    Industry and civil society have fundamentally different interpretations around how much — or how little — the deal would help put the countries on equal footing with their European partners.

    For businesses, the deal needs to happen to ensure the region remains on the EU’s political and economic map. 

    “For us, the [trade] agreements are important. We need stability and don’t want to be at the mercy of political changes,” said Luisa Santos of the industry lobby group BusinessEurope.

    But NGOs don’t see it that way. “Any proposal that leaves the region as a mere provider of natural resources for the benefit of the one percent in the region, big corporations and rich countries is business as usual,” said Hernán Saenz from the NGO Oxfam.

    Resource craze

    Sealing the Mercosur deal has gained importance for the EU, which is banking on the resource-rich region to power the wind turbines and electric vehicles it needs to meet its climate targets. 

    Brazil is the largest exporter of strategic raw materials to the EU by volume, while the “lithium triangle” spanning Chile, Argentina and Bolivia hosts about half of the world’s lithium reserves. As part of the summit, Brussels and Chile signed a new memorandum of understanding on raw materials. 

    Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (left) and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (right) in Brussels | Dati Bendo/EC

    But the EU’s new appetite for those metals and minerals evoques those dark memories of Spanish conquistadors who set out to dominate large parts of South America — in the name of god, glory and, not least, gold, fueling an economic boom back home while stripping Latin America of its riches.

    While von der Leyen on Monday announced Brussels will pump over €45 billion into the region through its Global Gateway program — for infrastructure projects that, at least in part, will also benefit the EU’s private sector — Europe is coming late to the party in a region where China has already expanded its influence.

    And raw materials partnerships today, the region’s countries emphasized, cannot be based on a model where resource-rich countries mine the valuable resources — often under poor environmental and working conditions — only for them to be shipped abroad for processing and manufacturing, making them reliant on imports for finished products. 

    “This was the first time that we had the opportunity to discuss in such clear terms a mechanism that would take us away from extractivism in Latin America,” Argentina’s President Alberto Fernández said after the summit.

    “It took five centuries, but we managed it — I’m saying that half in jest, but we have at last succeeded.”

    Camille Gijs and Barbara Moens contributed reporting.

    Sarah Anne Aarup and Antonia Zimmermann

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  • Pope worried about Nicaraguan bishop sentenced to 26 years

    Pope worried about Nicaraguan bishop sentenced to 26 years

    MEXICO CITY (AP) — Pope Francis on Sunday expressed sadness and worry at the news that Bishop Rolando Álvarez, an outspoken critic of the Nicaraguan government, had been sentenced to 26 years in prison.

    It’s just the latest move against the Catholic Church and government opponents, and comes amid growing concern for Álvarez.

    “The news that arrived from Nicaragua has saddened me no little,” the pontiff said, expressing both his love and concern at a traditional Sunday gathering in St. Peter’s Square.

    He called on the faithful to pray for the politicians responsible “to open their hearts.”

    Álvarez was sentenced Friday, after refusing to get on a flight to the United States with 222 other prisoners, all opponents of President Daniel Ortega. In addition to his prison term, Álvarez was stripped of his Nicaraguan citizenship.

    The bishop said if he boarded the plane, it would be he was admitting he was guilty to a crime he never committed, according to a person close to Álvarez who asked not the be identified out of fear of reprisal.

    “Let them go and I’ll stay and serve out their sentence,” he said that Álvarez told him.

    Until now, no one has been able to contact Álvarez, nor confirm for themselves where he is or if he is safe, he said.

    That concern was also echoed in Nicaragua’s capital, when Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes said someone had asked him what they could do for Álvarez.

    “Pray, that is our strength,” Brenes told those gathered inside the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. “Pray that the Lord gives him strength, gives him judgment in all of his actions.”

    The comments by Pope Francis and Cardinal Brenes on Sunday were the first made publicly by the church about the expulsion of the prisoners — several priests did board the flight — and of Álvarez’s sentence.

    Ortega ordered the mass release of political leaders, priests, students and activists widely considered political prisoners and had some of them put on a flight to Washington Thursday. Ortega said Álvarez refused to board without being able to consult with other bishops.

    Nicaragua’s president called Álvarez’s refusal “an absurd thing.” Álvarez, who had been held under house arrest, was then taken to the nearby Modelo prison.

    In the run-up to Ortega’s re-election in November 2021, Nicaraguan authorities arrested seven potential opposition presidential candidates to clear the field. The government closed hundreds of nongovernmental organizations that Ortega has accused of taking foreign funding and using it to destabilize his government.

    The former guerrilla fighter has long had a tense relationship with the Catholic Church. But he targeted it more directly last year in his campaign to extinguish voices of dissent.

    Ortega kicked out the papal nuncio, the Vatican’s top diplomat in March. Later, the government shut down several radio stations in Álvarez’s Matagalpa diocese ahead of municipal elections. Álvarez was arrested in August along with several other priests and lay people, accused with undermining the government and spreading false information.

    The church’s response to the government’s increasingly aggressive behavior has been muted, apparently in an attempt to not inflame tensions.

    On Saturday, a few thousand Ortega supporters marched in the capital in a show of support for the expulsion of the opposition prisoners. While some seemed genuine in their support, the government has earned a reputation for turning out people by making government employees attend.

    Outside Managua’s cathedral Sunday, it was clear that the lengthy sentence for a priest and stripping critics of their citizenship rankled people in the still heavily Roman Catholic country.

    Jorge Paladino, a 49-year-old architect, said he felt “disillusioned, upset, dismayed.” He said those who were expelled will always be Nicaraguans, regardless of what they are told.

    María Buitrago, a 61-year-old retiree, spoke softly but with indignation.

    “They took their nationality in a horrible way as if they are gods and can take from someone where they live, where they were born,” Buitrago said. “They can’t take Nicaraguan blood. They can’t take it. But they do what they please.”

    ——

    Associated Press writer Christopher Sherman in Mexico City contributed to this report.

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  • Nicaraguan bishop who refused exile gets 26 years in prison

    Nicaraguan bishop who refused exile gets 26 years in prison

    MEXICO CITY (AP) — Roman Catholic Bishop Rolando Álvarez, an outspoken critic of Nicaragua’s government, was sentenced to 26 years in prison and stripped of his Nicaraguan citizenship Friday, the latest move by President Daniel Ortega against the Catholic church and his opponents.

    A day after he refused to get on a flight to the United States with 222 other prisoners, all opponents of Ortega, a judge sentenced Álvarez for undermining the government, spreading false information, obstruction of functions and disobedience, according to a government statement published in official outlets.

    The sentence handed down by Octavio Ernesto Rothschuh, chief magistrate of the Managua appeals court, is the longest given to any of Ortega’s opponents over the last couple years.

    Álvarez was arrested in August along with several other priests and lay people. When Ortega ordered the mass release of political leaders, priests, students and activists widely considered political prisoners and had some of them put on a flight to Washington Thursday, Alvarez refused to board without being able to consult with other bishops, Ortega said.

    Nicaragua’s president called Álvarez’s refusal “an absurd thing.” Álvarez, who had been held under house arrest, was then taken to the nearby Modelo prison.

    Álvarez had been one of the most outspoken religious figures still in Nicaragua as Ortega intensified his repression of the opposition.

    Nicaragua’s Episcopal Conference did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the sentence. Reached by the AP, Managua vicar Mons. Carlos Avilés said he hadn’t heard anything official. “Maybe tomorrow.”

    The church is essentially the last independent institution trusted by a large portion of Nicaraguans and that makes it a threat to Ortega’s increasingly authoritarian rule.

    Andrew Chesnut, a professor of religious studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, said Álvarez’s sentence “constitutes the most severe repression against the Catholic Church in Latin America since the assassination of Guatemalan Bishop Juan José Gerardi in 1998.”

    “Since first becoming the ruling party in 1979 the Sandinistas have repressed the Catholic Church like few other regimes in Latin America,” Chesnut said. “Pope Francis has refrained from criticizing President Ortega for fear of inflaming the situation, but many believe that now is the time for him to speak out prophetically in defense of the most persecuted Church in Latin America.”

    Monsignor Silvio Báez, the former outspoken Managua auxiliary bishop who was recalled to the Vatican in 2019, said on Twitter “the Nicaraguan dictatorship’s hatred toward Mons. Rolando Álvarez is irrational and out of control.”

    Álvarez, the bishop of Matagalpa about 80 miles (130 kilometers) north of Managua, has been a key religious voice in discussions of Nicaragua’s future since 2018, when a wave of protests against Ortega’s government led to a sweeping crackdown on opponents.

    When the protests first erupted, Ortega asked the church to serve as mediator in peace talks.

    On April 20, 2018, hundreds of student protesters sought refuge at Managua’s cathedral. When police and Sandinista Youth descended, the students retreated inside, leaving only after clergy negotiated their safe passage.

    “We hope there would be a series of electoral reforms, structural changes to the electoral authority — free, just and transparent elections, international observation without conditions,” Álvarez said a month after the protests broke out. “Effectively the democratization of the country.”

    By that summer, the Church was under attack by Ortega’s supporters.

    A pro-government mob shoved, punched and scratched at Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes and other Catholic leaders as they tried to enter the Basilica San Sebastian in Diriamba on July 9, 2018.

    For nearly 15 hours overnight on July 13-14, 2018, armed government backers fired on a church in Managua while 155 student protesters who had been dislodged from a nearby university lay under the pews. A student who was shot in the head at a barricade outside died on the rectory floor.

    More recently, Ortega has accused the Church of being in on an alleged foreign-backed plot to depose him.

    Last summer, the government seized several radio stations owned by the diocese. At the time, it appeared Ortega’s administration wanted to silence critical voices ahead of municipal elections.

    The Holy See has been largely silent on the situation in Nicaragua, believing that any public denunciation will only inflame tensions further between the government and the local church.

    The Vatican’s last comment came in August when Pope Francis expressed concern about the raid of Álvarez’s residence and called for dialogue.

    Earlier this week, judges sentenced five other Catholic priests to prison. They were all aboard Thursday’s flight.

    Before the sentence was announced Friday, Emily Mendrala, a deputy assistant secretary in the State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, said “we see yesterday’s event as a positive step that could put the (bilateral) relationship on a more constructive trajectory.” But she added that “we still have concerns with the human rights situation and the situation with democracy in Nicaragua.”

    The State Department said Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke by phone Friday with Nicaragua Foreign Minister Denis Moncada about the prisoners’ release and “the importance of constructive dialogue between the United States to build a better future for the Nicaraguan people.” Presumably the conversation occurred before Álvarez’s sentence was announced.

    Vilma Núñez, director of the Nicaragua Center for Human Rights, which had been supporting prisoners in their cases, called the sentence “arbitrary and last minute,” noting that it included crimes that were not part of his original conviction.

    “The personal well-being and life of the Monsignor is in danger,” Núñez said.

    After expelling nearly all of his most vocal critics, Ortega found himself stuck with the bishop in a still heavily Catholic country.

    “The Catholic Church, I think, is one of the main institutions that the Ortega regime really, really fears,” Antonio Garrastazu, regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean at the International Republican Institute in Washington, said before the the sentencing. “The Catholic Church are really the ones that can actually change the hearts and minds of the people.”

    Prior to the release of prisoners, sanctions and public criticism of Ortega had been building for months, but both United States and Nicaraguan officials say the decision to put 222 dissidents on a plane to Washington came suddenly.

    The majority had been sentenced in the past couple years to lengthy prison terms. The release came together in a couple of days and the prisoners had no idea what was happening until their buses turned into Managua’s international airport.

    “I think the pressure, the political pressure of the prisoners, the political prisoners became important to the Ortega regime, even for the people, the Sandinista people who were tired of abuses,” opposition leader Juan Sebastian Chamorro, who was among those released, said during a press conference Friday. “I think (Ortega) wanted to basically send the opposition outside of the country into exile.”

    In Ortega’s mind, they are terrorists. Funded by foreign governments, they worked to destabilize his government after huge street protests broke out in April 2018, he maintains.

    Ortega said Vice President Rosario Murillo, his wife, first came to him with the idea of expelling the prisoners.

    “Rosario says to me, ‘Why don’t we tell the ambassador to take all of these terrorists,’” Ortega recounted in a rambling speech Thursday night. In a matter of days, it was done.

    __

    AP reporters Gisela Salomon in Miami, Ciaran Giles in Madrid, Spain and Nicole Winfield in Rome and E. Eduardo Castillo in Mexico City contributed to this report.

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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

    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


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

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  • Spain offers citizenship to freed Nicaraguan political prisoners

    Spain offers citizenship to freed Nicaraguan political prisoners

    The announcement comes after Nicaragua’s legislature moved to strip released prisoners of their citizenship.

    Spanish officials say they have offered citizenship to more than 200 Nicaraguan political prisoners released earlier this week, after legislators aligned with Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega moved to strip them of their legal status as citizens.

    Spanish foreign minister Jose Manuel Albares announced the decision on Friday to the news outlet Servimedia, one day after 222 political prisoners were freed by Nicaragua and sent to the United States.

    The former prisoners include opposition leaders, journalists and religious figures who have been outspoken against Ortega, a politician that human-rights groups have accused of orchestrating a violent campaign to silence his critics.

    In a statement on Thursday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken welcomed the release as a step “towards addressing human rights abuses” in Nicaragua and said it was the result of “concerted American diplomacy”.

    The Ortega administration, meanwhile, has described the prisoner release as an effort to remove criminals from within Nicaragua’s borders. In televised remarks, Ortega derided the prisoners as “agents” of foreign powers, saying, “Let them have their mercenaries.”

    Ortega has led a crackdown on dissent since Nicaragua was gripped by anti-government protests in April 2018.

    The vote by Nicaragua’s legislature to revoke the released prisoners’ citizenship left critics in fear that the 222 people would become stateless. The decision, however, would require a constitutional change to become official, and a second vote on the citizenship issue is not likely to occur before 2024.

    Albares told reporters the Spanish government made its decision to offer the former prisoners citizenship following “reports that proceedings had begun to declare them stateless”.

    The prisoners have been allowed to enter the US on temporary humanitarian visas. Spanish authorities said they would reach out to the prisoners to invite them to formally apply for citizenship.

    Two individuals were freed on Thursday but refused to board a plane to the US. One of them was Catholic Bishop Rolando Álvarez, who was expected to be sentenced on charges of conspiracy and spreading false information next week.

    But his sentencing hearing was moved forward to Friday after the release of the prisoners. Before a Managua appeals court, chief magistrate Octavio Ernesto Rothschuh handed Álvarez a 26-year sentence — the longest prison term given to an opposition figure under Ortega’s presidency in recent years.

    The court also announced that Álvarez would receive a fine and have his Nicaraguan citizenship revoked.

    Álvarez, one of Ortega’s most prominent critics, has been under arrest since August when police launched a pre-dawn raid on his church residence. He declined to leave Nicaragua on Thursday without first being able to consult with his fellow bishops, a condition Ortega ridiculed as “absurd”.

    The bishop is reportedly being held in the nearby Modelo prison, a facility Amnesty International has accused of torture and inhumane conditions.

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  • Nicaragua releases more than 200 political prisoners to U.S.

    Nicaragua releases more than 200 political prisoners to U.S.

    Nicaragua releases more than 200 political prisoners to U.S. – CBS News


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    Nicaragua has released more than 200 political prisoners to the U.S., including at least one American. CBS News’ Ed O’Keefe joins John Dickerson on “Prime Time” with more.

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  • Nicaragua frees 222 political prisoners, now heading to US

    Nicaragua frees 222 political prisoners, now heading to US

    Release welcomed as ‘excellent’ news amid Nicaraguan government’s crackdown on opposition figures and critics.

    Nicaragua has released 222 inmates, many of whom were considered to be political prisoners of longtime Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega’s government, and they are on their way to the United States, a senior US official has said.

    “Some of these individuals have spent years in prison, many of them for exercising their fundamental freedoms, in awful conditions and with no access to due process,” the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said in a statement on Thursday.

    The Nicaraguan government did not immediately confirm the release.

    The New York Times reported that the US government sent a plane to the Nicaraguan capital of Managua to fly the freed prisoners to Washington, DC. The flight is expected to arrive around noon local time (17:00 GMT).

    Ortega has maintained that his imprisoned opponents and others were behind 2018 protests that he says were part of a plot to overthrow him.

    Tens of thousands of people have fled into exile – most notably to neighbouring Costa Rica – since Nicaraguan security forces cracked down on those anti-government demonstrations.

    More recently, the US and European Union have accused Ortega of launching a fresh campaign of unjustified arrests in the lead-up to 2021 elections, as dozens of opposition leaders and presidential hopefuls were detained.

    US President Joe Biden’s administration denounced the vote, which saw Ortega win a fourth consecutive term, as a “sham” – and Washington and its allies have heaped fresh sanctions on the government in Managua.

    Many of those arrested have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms, often on charges of “conspiracy to undermine national integrity”.

    In June of last year, the United Nations’ then-human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, said the situation in Nicaragua was deteriorating amid arbitrary detentions, harsh prison conditions, a lack of due process, increased state control over academic institutions and non-profit organisations, and curbs to freedom of association.

    “I strongly urge the government of Nicaragua to uphold – not move further away from – its human rights obligations. I call on authorities to immediately cease policies which are today only serving to isolate the country and its people from the regional and international communities,” she said.

    On Thursday, the senior Biden administration official said the US facilitated the transportation of the freed individuals to the country, where they will be paroled for humanitarian reasons into the country for a period of two years.

    The official said the US government considered the mass release a positive step by Nicaragua, adding that all of those who left the Central American country did so voluntarily and are to receive medical and legal assistance upon arrival in the US.

    Arturo McFields, the former Nicaraguan envoy to the Organization of American States, who resigned from his post last year over the Ortega government’s human rights record, welcomed the release of the prisoners as “excellent” news.

    “Hallelujah, glory to God,” McFields said in a video posted on Twitter.

    Family members of some of those released confirmed that their loved ones were flying to Washington, DC.

    Berta Valle, the wife of opposition leader Felix Maradiaga, said the State Department told her that her husband was on the plane, as reported by The Associated Press news agency.

    Georgiana Aguirre-Sacasa, the daughter of Nicaragua’s former foreign minister Francisco Aguirre-Sacasa, also told The Guardian newspaper that her father was among those freed.

    “This is huge,” she said. “This has been a very long slog for us and I just can’t believe it.”

    It was not immediately clear which other prisoners were released.

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  • Illegal border crossings to US from Mexico hit annual high

    Illegal border crossings to US from Mexico hit annual high

    SAN DIEGO (AP) — A surge in migration from Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua in September brought the number of illegal crossings to the highest level ever recorded in a fiscal year, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

    The year-end numbers reflect deteriorating economic and political conditions in some countries, the relative strength of the U.S. economy and uneven enforcement of Trump-era asylum restrictions.

    Migrants were stopped 227,547 times in September at the U.S. border with Mexico, the third-highest month of Joe Biden’s presidency. It was up 11.5% from 204,087 times in August and 18.5% from 192,001 times in September 2021.

    In the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, migrants were stopped 2.38 million times, up 37% from 1.73 million times the year before, according to figures released late Friday night. The annual total surpassed 2 million for the first time in August and is more than twice the highest level during Donald Trump’s presidency in 2019.

    Nearly 78,000 migrants from Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua were stopped in September, compared to about 58,000 from Mexico and three countries of northern Central America that have historically accounted for most of the flow.

    The remarkable geographic shift is at least partly a result of Title 42, a public health rule that suspends rights to see asylum under U.S. and international law on grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19.

    Due to strained diplomatic relations, the U.S. cannot expel migrants to Venezuela, Cuba or Nicaragua. As a result, they are largely released in the United States to pursue their immigration cases.

    Title 42 authority has been applied 2.4 million times since it began in March 2020 but has fallen disproportionately on migrants from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

    U.S. officials say Venezuelan migration to the United States has plunged more than 85% since Oct. 12, when the U.S. began expelling Venezuelans to Mexico under Title 42. At the same time, the Biden administration pledged to admit up to 24,000 Venezuelans to the United States on humanitarian parole if they apply online with a financial sponsor and enter through an airport, similar to how tens of thousands of Ukrainians have come since Russia invaded their country.

    The first four Venezuelans paroled into the United States arrived Saturday — two from Mexico, one from Guatemala, one from Peru — and hundreds more have been approved to fly, the Homeland Security Department said.

    “While this early data is not reflected in the (September) report, it confirms what we’ve said all along: When there is a lawful and orderly way to enter the country, individuals will be less likely to put their lives in the hands of smugglers and try to cross the border unlawfully,” said CBP Commissioner Chris Magnus.

    The expansion of Title 42 for Venezuelans to be expelled to Mexico came despite the administration’s attempt to end the public health authority in May, which was blocked by a federal judge.

    Venezuelans represented the second-largest nationality at the border after Mexicans for the second straight month, being stopped 33,804 times in September, up 33% from 25,361 times in August.

    Cubans, who are participating in the largest exodus from the Caribbean island to the United States since 1980, were stopped 26,178 times at the border in September, up 37% from 19,060 in August.

    Nicaraguans were stopped 18,199 times in September, up 55% from 7,298 times in August.

    The report is the last monthly reading of migration flows before U.S. midterm elections, an issue that many Republicans have emphasized in campaigns to capture control of the House and Senate. Republicans on the House Homeland Security Committee released a one-sentence statement Saturday in response to the numbers: “You’ve got to be kidding.”

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