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Tag: Political refugees

  • Migrants to Iowa strike different portraits where ‘American Gothic’ was created

    CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — It was in Cedar Rapids, surrounded by cornfields, where Iowa artist Grant Wood painted “American Gothic,” the iconic 1930 portrayal of a stern-looking woman and a man with a pitchfork in front of a white frame house.

    The city presents many different images today, after more than a century of international migration and faith-based resettlement efforts.

    To many newcomers as well as lifelong residents, this heartland river city where migrants from present-day Lebanon built the first U.S. mosque is a welcoming microcosm of America’s melting pot at a time when immigration enforcement is disrupting families and communities.

    Hundreds of refugee families were resettled by The Catherine McAuley Center, founded by the Catholic Sisters of Mercy, until the nationwide halt ordered by the Trump administration this spring. At a recent class offered by the center, a Guatemalan woman and her son, along with five men from China, Benin, Togo, Sudan and Congo, sang the U.S. national anthem and rehearsed questions for the citizenship test.

    “It is a matter of meshing or integrating — how do we get around in the community? How do we find our friends? How do we find bridges across cultural divides?” said Anne Dugger, the center’s director.

    As Americans struggle to redefine who belongs in the social fabric, these are snapshots of heartland immigrants and their faith communities.

    Bob Kazimour goes to Mass at St. Wenceslaus, where he remembers as a child the liturgy was in Latin and the homily in Czech. It’s the language of generations of his ancestors who left what was then Bohemia in Central Europe to work in Cedar Rapids’ meatpacking plants, forming the area’s first large immigrant group in the mid to late 1800s.

    Kazimour can still sing a few Czech carols — and there’s a Czech choir, a Czech school and a goulash festival to commemorate.

    He and other parishioners whose great-great-grandparents went to St. Wenceslaus aren’t certain new generations will keep up Czech customs. But the Catholic parish is growing again after merging with Immaculate Conception, a downtown church with a booming Latin American congregation.

    “In Cedar Rapids, unlike the coasts with lots of problems, we’re Iowa nice. We get along pretty darn well,” Kazimour said.

    At the beginning of the 20th century, Lebanese Muslims came to the Midwest, often starting as itinerant merchants before establishing grocery stores. In a few decades, Cedar Rapids had dozens of these businesses — and a mosque.

    Within ten months after Mohamed Mahmoud came to the United States from Sudan in 2022, he opened a halal grocery store in a strip mall a few minutes drive from the Islamic Center of Cedar Rapids, where he prays on Fridays.

    “Religion is a part of life wherever you go. If you don’t find a mosque, it’s something missing,” he said in-between serving sweets at a counter with Muslim holiday decorations and American flags. “Cedar Rapids is the best option for me to live the rest of my life.”

    A few blocks from Mahmoud’s shop, the St. Jude Catholic Church’s Sweet Corn Festival was in full swing. And among the many volunteers sporting 50-year-anniversary festival T-shirts were members of the growing African congregation, mostly from Togo and Congo.

    While frying funnel cakes and Snickers bars, Bienvenue D’Almeida described a journey shared by many of St. Jude’s parishioners. Wanting better educational opportunities for their children, they applied for and won the so-called green card lottery, a program for countries with low rates of emigration to the United States.

    At St. Jude, the migrants found aid on arrival, and soon built French-speaking ministries, from family groups to choir to monthly French Mass.

    “You feel safe, and because of that, you’ve that sense of belonging,” said Roger Atchou, a father of two from Togo and festival volunteer.

    “For us, St. Jude represents the United States — it’s open to everyone,” said parish council member Martin Mutombo, a Congolese volunteering with his wife, Clarisse, and five children.

    “We feel very comfortable” in this adopted homeland, Clarisse Mutombo said. Nevertheless, they’re painfully aware that others in the congregation are having a harder time, including a father detained for overstaying a visa.

    Another African refugee congregation gathers in the historic St. Paul’s United Methodist Church for Sunday afternoon services in Kirundi, one of Burundi’s languages.

    “When I work here for God at St. Paul’s, I have a peace. I find myself home,” said the Rev. Daniel Niyonzima, through his son’s translation.

    The pastor and his wife, from Burundi, arrived nearly 20 years ago after more than a decade in refugee camps in Tanzania, and were hosted by the Methodist congregation. Now they’re U.S. citizens — and grandparents.

    Across the hall from the sanctuary, English classes and driver’s ed are hosted by a nonprofit started by a church member, Mugisha Gloire, a Congolese refugee who came as a child to Iowa. He remembers how warmly he was welcomed by a local volunteer who took him to swimming lessons and baseball games.

    “Cedar Rapids has a long way to go to welcome everyone, but there are also some very great people,” Gloire said.

    A few blocks west of St. Paul’s is Immaculate Conception Catholic Church, where five children were baptized recently at the Spanish-language Mass that’s been held regularly for more than a dozen years.

    Holding her newly christened 4-month-old nephew Gael, Gabriela Plasencia, originally from the Mexican state of Jalisco, said receiving the sacraments in Spanish allows them to “live them differently, understand more deeply.”

    Being able to worship in their native language is a special blessing as the immigration crackdown casts a pall, some parishioners said. Many know people in the country illegally who have left voluntarily, and others who were arrested and deported. Everyone feels affected, said Gabriela’s father, David Plasencia.

    “Inside here, we feel pretty peaceful, but the moment we go out into the streets, we all feel that anxiety,” he said.

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

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  • Banning UNRWA will lead to a vacuum and more suffering for Palestinians, the agency’s chief says

    Banning UNRWA will lead to a vacuum and more suffering for Palestinians, the agency’s chief says

    RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — The head of the U.N. agency caring for Palestinian refugees said Wednesday that newly passed Israeli laws effectively banning its activities in Israel will leave a vacuum that will cost more lives and create further instability in Gaza and the West Bank.

    Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview — the first since the laws were passed — that the legislation is “ultimately against the Palestinians themselves,” effectively denying them a functioning provider of lifesaving services, education and health care.

    UNRWA has been the main agency procuring and distributing aid in the Gaza Strip, where almost the entire population of around 2.3 million Palestinians relies on the agency for survival amid Israel’s nearly 13-month-old war with the militant Hamas group.

    Tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians are sheltering in UNRWA-run schools. Other aid groups say the agency’s strong, decades-old infrastructure across Gaza is irreplaceable. So far, Israel has put forward no plan for getting food, medicine and other supplies to Gaza’s population in UNRWA’s absence.

    Israel alleges that Hamas and other militants have infiltrated UNRWA, using its facilities and taking aid — claims for which it has provided little evidence. The laws, passed by parliament this week, sever all ties with UNRWA and ban its operations in Israel.

    And since the agency’s operations in Gaza and the West Bank must go through Israeli authorities, the laws threaten to close its activities there as well. The laws are expected to come into effect in three months.

    If the Israeli decision is implemented “this would be a total disaster, it is like throwing (out) the baby with the water,” Lazzarini told the AP, speaking in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, where he is attending a conference to discuss the Mideast conflict.

    “This would create a vacuum. It would also feed more instability in the West Bank and Gaza,” he said. “Having UNRWA ending its activities within the three months would also mean more people will die in Gaza.”

    He said the agency is looking for “creative ways to keep our operation going.” He appealed for support from the U.N. General Assembly and donors to keep providing services and called on Israel to rescind the decision or extend the three-month grace period. He said Israel has not officially communicated with the agency following the adoption of the laws.

    For decades, UNRWA has operated networks of schools, medical facilities and other services around Gaza and the West Bank — as well as in neighboring Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. In Gaza especially, it plays a major role in maintaining social services and the economy, as the territory’s largest single employer and the source of education and health care for much of the population.

    The laws threaten to shut down all those operations, impacting the education and welfare of hundreds of thousands of children well into the future, he said.

    “We have today 1 in 2 persons in Gaza below the age of 18, among them 650,000 girls and boys living in the rubble, deeply traumatized at the age of primary and secondary school,” he said. “Getting rid of UNRWA is also a way to tell these children that you will have no future. We are just sacrificing your education. Education is the only thing which has never, ever been taken away from the Palestinians.”

    UNRWA was established to help the estimated 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were driven out of what is now Israel during the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation. It now offers support to the refugees and their descendants, who number some 6 million around the region.

    Lazzarini said the Israeli laws are the “culmination of years of attack against the agency.” He said “the objective is to strip the Palestinian from refugee status.”

    International law gives Palestinian refugees and their descendants the right to return to their homes. Israel has refused to allow their return, saying it would end the Jewish majority in the country. Israel has said the refugees should be taken in by their host countries, and officials often argue that UNRWA’s services keep Palestinians’ hopes for return alive.

    In a letter to the U.N, Lazzarini said the Israeli laws and campaign against the agency “will not terminate the refugee status of the Palestinians, which exists independently of UNRWA’s services, but will severely harm their lives and future.”

    Israel claims hundreds of Palestinian militants work for UNRWA, without providing evidence, and that more than a dozen employees took part in Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel that ignited the latest war.

    The U.N. has fired nine staffers after internal investigations found they may have participated in the attack. UNRWA has nearly 30,000 staff around the region, including 13,000 in Gaza, most of them Palestinians. Israel also says Hamas fighters operate in UNRWA schools and other facilities in Gaza — and has hit many of them with airstrikes.

    UNRWA denies knowingly aiding armed groups and says it acts quickly to purge any suspected militants from its ranks.

    Lazzarini said Israel has not responded to inquiries from UNRWA for details about other allegations, including that the agency’s premises are used by militant groups.. With the continued fighting, the agency has been unable to verify the claims, he said and called for an independent investigation.

    At least 237 UNRWA staff have been killed in the war in Gaza, a toll among U.N. staff not seen in any other conflict. Over 200 UNRWA facilities have been damaged or destroyed, killing more than 560 people sheltering there.

    Lazzarini spoke on the sidelines of the conference by the Global Alliance for a Two-State Solution, a Saudi government-created initiative attended by foreign ministers from Arab, Muslim, African and European countries.

    “If we want to be successful in any future political transition, we need an agency like UNRWA taking care of education and the primary health of the Palestinian refugees” until there is a viable functioning state or administration to do so, he said.

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    El Deeb reported from Beirut.

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  • Thousands are pouring into Syria, fleeing worsening conflict in Lebanon

    Thousands are pouring into Syria, fleeing worsening conflict in Lebanon

    JDEIDET YABOUS, Syria — Families fleeing the escalating conflict in Lebanon poured into Syria in growing numbers on Wednesday, waiting for hours in heavy traffic to reach the relative safety of another war-torn country.

    U.N. officials estimated that thousands of Lebanese and Syrian families had already made the journey. Those numbers are expected to grow as Israel targets southern and eastern Lebanon in an aerial bombardment that local officials say has killed more than 600 people this week, at least a quarter of them women and children. Israel says it is targeting Hezbollah fighters and weapons.

    Lines of buses and cars extended for several kilometers (miles) from the Syria border beginning on Monday, and some families were seen making the journey on foot. Once in Syria, people waited hours more to be processed by overwhelmed border officials, and relief workers handed out food, water, mattresses and blankets.

    “Many will have to spend the night outdoors waiting their turn,” Rula Amin, a spokesperson for the U.N.’s refugee agency, said in a statement.

    Amin said some of the people arriving from Lebanon had visible injuries suffered from recent attacks.

    The cross-border flow was a striking reversal in fortunes given that Lebanon is still hosting more than one million Syrian refugees who fled the war in their country that began in 2011. That’s when an initially peaceful anti-government uprising was met by a brutal government crackdown and spiraled into an ongoing civil war.

    In the Syrian border town of Jdeidet Yabous, some families sat glumly on the side of the road when Associated Press journalists visited the area. Some used their bags as seats, waiting for taxis, buses or relatives to pick them up. Many said they had spent eight or nine hours in traffic just to get into Syria.

    Before crossing the border, crowds packed into a government office to be processed by immigration officers and, in the case of Syrian citizens, to change $100 to Syrian pounds before entering — a measure imposed in an attempt to prop up the local currency by bringing more dollars into the country. Due to the sudden spike in demand, the supply of Syrian pounds at the border ran short.

    Some were returning refugees, like Emad al-Salim, who had fled Aleppo in 2014. He was living in the southern coastal city of Tyre when Monday’s bombardment began. He gathered his wife and six children and fled again.

    “There were houses destroyed in front of me as we were coming out,” he said. “It took us three days to get here.”

    Nada Hamid al-Lajji returned with her family after seven years in Lebanon with her husband. They are from eastern Syria, but al-Lajji said she doesn’t know if they will return there.

    “Where am I going to go?” she said. “I don’t even have a house anymore. I don’t know where I will go.”

    Many Lebanese families were also fleeing. Mahmoud Ahmad Tawbeh from the village of Arnoun in the country’s south had come with an extended family of 35 people, planning to stay in a rented house in a Damascus suburb.

    “We left with difficulty, there were a lot of bombs dropping above our heads,” he said. Five or six houses in the village were destroyed and several neighbors were killed, he said.

    For many in Lebanon, particularly those living in the Bekaa Valley in the east, Syria appeared to be the quickest route to safety. Israeli strikes across the country this week have wounded more than 2,000.

    Many of the Lebanese arriving at the border refused to speak to journalists or would not give their full names because of the sensitivity of the situation. One woman from the town of Harouf in southern Lebanon, who gave her family name, Matouk, said she had come with her brother’s wife, who is Syrian, to stay with in-laws.

    Several families near where they lived were killed, she said, and she was worried about her father and siblings who she had left behind.

    While the war in Syria is ongoing, active fighting has long been frozen in much of the country. Lebanese citizens, who can cross the border without a visa, regularly visit Damascus. And renting an apartment is significantly cheaper in Syria than in Lebanon. Even before the latest escalation, some Lebanese had rented in Syria as a Plan B in case they needed to flee.

    Apart from those who fled the war, many Syrians come to Lebanon for work or family reasons, and regularly cross the border.

    However, many of those who came as refugees have been reluctant to return out of fear they could be arrested for real or perceived ties to the opposition to Syrian President Bashar Assad or forcibly conscripted to the army. If they leave Lebanon they could also lose their refugee status.

    Earlier this week, Assad issued an amnesty for crimes committed before Sept. 22, including those who dodged compulsory military service.

    He had issued similar amnesties over the past years, but they largely failed to convince refugees to return, as have efforts by Lebanese authorities to organize “voluntary return” trips.

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    Sewell reported from Beirut.

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  • UK leader Starmer condemns attack on asylum-seeker hotel as far-right violence spreads

    UK leader Starmer condemns attack on asylum-seeker hotel as far-right violence spreads

    LONDON — U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer strongly condemned an attack Sunday on a hotel housing asylum seekers that saw at least 10 police officers injured, one seriously, describing it as “far-right thuggery,” as more violence broke out across the country in the wake of a stabbing rampage at a dance class that left three girls dead and many more wounded.

    In a statement from 10 Downing Street on Sunday afternoon, the prime minister vowed that the authorities will “do whatever it takes to bring these thugs to justice” and that justice will be swift.

    “I guarantee you will regret taking part in this disorder, whether directly or those whipping up this action online and then running away themselves,” he said. “This is not a protest, it is organized, violent thuggery and it has no place on our streets or online.”

    Starmer was speaking after another day of far-right violence, which was particularly acute in the north of England town of Rotherham where police struggled to hold back hundreds of rioters who sought to break into a Holiday Inn Express hotel being used as accommodation for asylum-seekers.

    Before bringing the riot under some sort of control, police officers with shields had faced a barrage of missiles, including bits of wood, chairs and fire extinguishers. A large bin close to a window of the hotel was also set alight but the small fire was extinguished.

    South Yorkshire Police, which is responsible for Rotherham, said at least 10 officers have been injured, including one who was left unconscious.

    “The behaviour we witnessed has been nothing short of disgusting. While it was a smaller number of those in attendance who chose to commit violence and destruction, those who simply stood on and watched remain absolutely complicit in this,” said Assistant Chief Constable Lindsey Butterfield. “We have officers working hard, reviewing the considerable online imagery and footage of those involved, and they should expect us to be at their doors very soon.”

    Far-right agitators have sought to take advantage of last week’s stabbing attack by tapping into concerns about the scale of immigration in the U.K., in particular the tens of thousands of migrants arriving in small boats from France across the English Channel.

    Tensions were also running high Sunday in the northeastern town of Middlesbrough, where some protesters broke free of a police guard. One group walked through a residential area smashing the windows of houses and cars. When asked by a resident why they were breaking windows, one man replied, “Because we’re English.” Hundreds of others squared up to police with shields at the town’s cenotaph, throwing bricks, cans and pots at officers.

    Starmer said anyone targeting people for the color of their skin or their faith is far-right.

    “People in this country have a right to be safe, and yet we’ve seen Muslim communities targeted, attacks on mosques, other minority communities singled out, Nazi salutes in the street, attacks on the police, wanton violence alongside racist rhetoric, so no, I won’t shy away from calling it what it is: far-right thuggery,” he said.

    The violence over the past days, which has seen a library torched, mosques attacked and flares thrown at a statue of wartime leader Winston Churchill, began after false rumors spread online that the suspect in the dance class stabbing attack was an asylum-seeker, fueling anger among far-right supporters.

    Suspects under 18 are usually not named in the U.K., but the judge in the case ordered Axel Rudakubana, born in Wales to Rwandan parents, to be identified, in part to stop the spread of misinformation. Rudakubana has been charged with three counts of murder, and 10 counts of attempted murder.

    Hundreds of people have been arrested in connection with the disorder and many more are likely as police scour CCTV, social media and body-worn camera footage. However, police have also warned that with widespread security measures in place, with thousands of officers deployed, other crimes may not be investigated fully.

    With so many arrests, the courts will face a challenge in processing all the charges at a time when the criminal justice system is overstretched, following years of austerity and the COVID pandemic. In May, the National Audit Office warned that the courts faced a backlog of more than 60,000 cases, while the government said last month that thousands of inmates would have to be released early to ease prison overcrowding.

    Stephen Parkinson, director of public prosecutions for England and Wales, said extra lawyers have been deployed over the weekend and will work “around the clock” over coming days to ensure justice is served. He said he has directed prosecutors to make immediate charging decisions where key evidence is in place.

    “I am determined that we will act swiftly and robustly, giving the courts maximum ability to pass sentences that reflect what has occurred,” he said.

    Many of the demonstrations over the past week were organized online by far-right groups, who mobilize support with phrases like “enough is enough,” “save our kids” and “stop the boats.”

    Rallying cries have come from a diffuse group of social media accounts, but a key player in amplifying them is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, a longtime far-right agitator who uses the name Tommy Robinson. He led the English Defense League, which Merseyside Police has linked to the violent protest in Southport on Tuesday, near the scene of the stabbing attack.

    Yaxley-Lennon, 41, was banned from Twitter in 2018 but allowed back after it was bought by Elon Musk and rebranded as X. He has more than 800,000 followers. He currently faces an arrest warrant after leaving the U.K. last week before a scheduled hearing in contempt-of-court proceedings against him.

    Nigel Farage, who was elected to parliament in July for the first time as leader of Reform U.K., has also been blamed by many for encouraging — indirectly — the anti-immigration sentiment. He has sought to link many of the problems the country faces, such as in health and housing, on the big annual increases in the country’s population.

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    Associated Press writer Jill Lawless contributed to this report.

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  • Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni visits Albania to thank country for hosting 2 migrant centers

    Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni visits Albania to thank country for hosting 2 migrant centers

    TIRANA, Albania — Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni is traveling to Albania to thank the country for its willingness to host thousands of asylum seekers and tour the sites of two migrant detention centers, a visit coming just days before local and European Parliament elections, where migration is a top campaign issue.

    In November, Meloni and Albania’s Prime Minister Edi Rama signed a 5-year deal in which Albania agreed to shelter up to 3,000 migrants rescued from international waters each month while Italy processes their asylum claims. With asylum requests expected to take around a month to process, the number of asylum seekers sent to Albania could reach up to 36,000 in a year.

    Meloni has defended the controversial plan as a necessary component of her crackdown on migration, aiming to deter would-be refugees from paying smugglers to make the dangerous Mediterranean crossing. Human rights groups and opposition lawmakers have warned that refugee protections could be compromised.

    Meloni will kick off her visit to the tiny Western Balkan nation at Gjader, a former military airport, 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of the capital, Tirana, and where work for one of the two migrant centers has started.

    Then she moves to the port of Shengjin, 20 kilometers (12 miles) southwest of Gjader, where an accommodation center is set in a rectangular area covering 4,000 square meters (4,800 square yards). Shengjin’s migrant reception center is ready to host migrants.

    Meloni’s visit comes a day before the June 6-9 European elections in which migration has been a key campaign issue. Meloni and her right-wing allies have long demanded European countries share more of the migration burden, and have held up the Albania agreement as an innovative solution to a problem that has vexed the EU for years.

    Meloni, of the far-right Brothers of Italy party, has also championed her so-called Mattei Plan to fund projects in African countries along migrant routes in exchange for better controls, while pressing ahead with plans to run migrant centers in Albania.

    The two processing centers in Albania will cost Italy more than 600 million euros (about $650 million) over 5 years. The facilities would be fully run by Italy while it fast-tracks migrants’ asylum requests. They are expected to become fully operational later this year.

    Both centers are under Italian jurisdiction while Albanian guards will provide outside security.

    Italy would welcome the migrants if they are granted international protection or organize their deportation from Albania if refused.

    Those picked up within Italy’s territorial waters, or by rescue ships operated by nongovernmental organizations, would retain their right under international and EU law to apply for asylum in Italy and have their claims processed there.

    Data from the Italian Interior Ministry show the number of migrants arriving in Italy is way down compared to the same period last year: As of Tuesday, 21,574 people had arrived in Italy via boat so far this year, compared to 51,628 during the same period in 2023.

    Albania is not a European Union member, and the idea of sending asylum seekers outside the bloc is controversial. The deal was endorsed by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen as an example of “out-of-the-box thinking,” but has been widely criticized by rights groups.

    Rama, of Albania’s left-wing governing Socialist Party, has said the deal is a sign of gratitude on behalf of Albanians who found refuge in Italy and “escaped hell and imagined a better life” following the collapse of communism in the 1990s Albania.

    Tirana has refused other countries’ requests for deals similar to that of Italy, according to Rama.

    Italy’s center-left opposition has called the deal an expensive exercise in propaganda ahead of European elections and a shameful bid to turn Albania into Italy’s “Guantánamo.”

    A group of 30 Albanian opposition conservative lawmakers took the case to the Constitutional Court in an unsuccessful effort to block the Italy-Albania deal on the grounds of human rights.

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    Follow Llazar Semini at https://x.com/lsemini

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    Follow AP’s coverage of migration issues at https://apnews.com/hub/migration

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  • Document spells out allegations against 12 UN employees Israel says participated in Hamas attack

    Document spells out allegations against 12 UN employees Israel says participated in Hamas attack


    TEL AVIV, Israel — An Israeli document obtained Monday spelled out allegations against a dozen U.N. employees the country says took part in Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault — claiming seven stormed into Israeli territory, including one who participated in a kidnapping and another who helped to steal a soldier’s body.

    The allegations against staffers with the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees prompted Western countries to freeze funds vital for the body, which is a lifeline for desperate Palestinians in Gaza.

    The U.N. condemned “the abhorrent alleged acts” and fired nine of the accused workers, who include teachers and a social worker. Two are reportedly dead, and the last is still being identified.

    The accusations come after years of tensions between Israel and the agency known as UNRWA over its work in Gaza, where it employs roughly 13,000 people.

    Despite the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in the besieged territory — where Israel’s war against Hamas has displaced the vast majority of the population and officials say a quarter of Palestinians are starving — major donors, including the U.S. and Britain, have cut funding.

    With the majority of its budget in doubt, and because UNRWA spends contributions as they come in throughout the year, the agency says it will be forced to halt operations within weeks if funding isn’t restored.

    The threat to the U.N. agency came as Israel said cease-fire talks held Sunday were constructive but that “significant gaps” remained in any potential agreement. The talks are meant to bring about some respite to war-torn Gaza and secure the release of more than 100 hostages still held in the territory.

    Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan told reporters in Beirut that discussions are continuing but that the group is still insisting on a more permanent cease-fire before releasing any more hostages.

    The prime minister of Qatar, which has served as a key mediator with Hamas, was more upbeat, saying U.S. and Mideast mediators had reached a framework proposal for a cease-fire and hostage release to present to the militant group. Speaking at the Atlantic Council in Washington, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said the mediators had made “good progress.”

    Israeli forces are meanwhile still battling Palestinian militants in different parts of Gaza, even in areas where the army has been operating for months.

    Israel issued an evacuation order to residents in the western part of Gaza City, urging them to head south. The military also said it had battled militants and carried out airstrikes in recent days in other parts of northern Gaza, which was pummeled in the first weeks of the war and where Israel has claimed to have largely dismantled Hamas.

    Militants also fired a barrage of around 15 rockets at central Israel for the first time in weeks. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.

    The war was sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, which killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and saw some 250 people taken captive, according to Israeli authorities.

    Israel responded with an intense air, sea and ground offensive that has killed more than 26,000 Palestinians, most of them women and minors, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.

    The war has also threatened to set off a wider regional conflict. In the latest example of high tensions, the U.S. announced that three of its troops were killed in a strike blamed on Iran-backed militias in Jordan.

    The Israeli document, which has been shared with U.S. officials and was obtained by The Associated Press, lists 12 people, their alleged roles in the attack, job descriptions and photos. The findings detailed in the document could not be independently confirmed.

    The document said intelligence gathered showed that at least 190 UNRWA workers were Hamas or Islamic Jihad operatives, without providing evidence.

    It said of the 12 workers, nine were teachers and one a social worker. Seven of the employees were accused of crossing into Israel on Oct. 7. Of those, one was accused of taking part in a kidnapping, another of helping to take away a dead soldier and three others of participating in the attacks.

    Ten were listed as having ties to Hamas and one to the Islamic Jihad militant group. Two of the 12 have been killed, according to the document. The U.N. previously said one was still being identified.

    The allegations have stoked longstanding tensions between Israel and UNRWA. Israel says Hamas uses the agency’s facilities to store weapons and launch attacks. UNRWA says it does not knowingly tolerate such behavior and has internal safeguards to prevent abuses and discipline any wrongdoing.

    Even before the latest allegations, the agency’s commissioner, Philippe Lazzarini, had announced that he was ordering an external review of the agency’s operations and its safeguards.

    Israel has long been critical of the agency and accuses it of helping to perpetuate the 76-year-old Palestinian refugee crisis. Foreign Minister Israel Katz said he canceled a Wednesday meeting between Israeli officials and Lazzarini, and called on the UNRWA head to resign.

    The U.N. says the entire agency should not be penalized over the alleged actions of the dozen workers, who it says will be held accountable. It has called for the donors to resume funding.

    A coalition of 20 aid groups, including the Norwegian Refugee Council, Oxfam and Save the Children, also called for funding to be restored, saying UNRWA’s delivery of humanitarian assistance “cannot be replaced.”

    The United States, the agency’s largest donor, cut funding over the weekend, followed by more than a dozen other countries. Together, they provided more than 60% of UNRWA’s budget in 2022.

    UNRWA provides basic services for Palestinian families who fled or were driven out of what is now Israel during the 1948 war surrounding the country’s creation. Refugees and their descendants now number nearly 6 million across the Middle East. In Gaza, they are a majority of the population.

    UNRWA is unique in the U.N. system because it is only focused on one national group, with refugees from other conflicts falling under the purview of the agency known as UNHCR.

    Since the war began, most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have come to depend on UNRWA’s programs for “sheer survival,” including food and shelter, Lazzarini said.

    A quarter of Gaza’s population is facing starvation as fighting and Israeli restrictions hinder the delivery of aid. Communications Director Juliette Touma warned that the agency would be forced to stop its support in Gaza by the end of February.

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    Jobain reported from Rafah, Gaza Strip, and Jeffery from London.

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    Follow AP’s coverage of the Israel-Hamas war at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war



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  • What is UNRWA, the main aid provider in Gaza that Israel accuses of militant links?

    What is UNRWA, the main aid provider in Gaza that Israel accuses of militant links?


    Israel’s allegations that 12 employees of a United Nations agency were involved in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack have led several Western countries to cut off funding and reignited debate over Gaza’s biggest humanitarian aid provider.

    The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, employs thousands of staffers and provides vital aid and services to millions of people across the Middle East. In Gaza, it has been the main supplier of food, water and shelter to civilians during the Israel-Hamas war.

    Israel has long railed against the agency, accusing it of tolerating or even collaborating with Hamas and of perpetuating the 75-year-old Palestinian refugee crisis. The Israeli government has accused Hamas and other militant groups of siphoning off aid and using U.N. facilities for military purposes.

    UNRWA denies those allegations and says it took swift action against the employees accused of taking part in the attack. The United States and eight other Western nations that together provided more than half of UNRWA’s budget in 2022 nevertheless suspended their funding to the agency.

    U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says 2 million Palestinians in Gaza, or 87% of the population, rely on UNRWA services that would be scaled back as soon as February if the money is not restored.

    The U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East was established to provide aid to the estimated 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were driven out of what is now Israel during the 1948 war surrounding the country’s creation.

    The Palestinians say the refugees and their descendants, who now number nearly 6 million across the Middle East, have the right to return to their homes.

    Israel has refused, because if the right of return were to be fully implemented it would result in a Palestinian majority inside its borders. The fate of the refugees and their descendants was among the thorniest issues in the peace process, which ground to a halt in 2009.

    UNRWA operates schools, health clinics, infrastructure projects and aid programs in refugee camps that now resemble dense urban neighborhoods in Gaza, the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. It has 13,000 employees in Gaza alone, the vast majority of them Palestinians.

    In Gaza, where some 85% of territory’s 2.3 million people have fled their homes, over 1 million are sheltering in UNRWA schools and other facilities.

    Israel accuses UNRWA of turning a blind eye as Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, siphons off aid intended for civilians and fights from in and around U.N. facilities, several of which have been struck during the war. It also has exposed Hamas tunnels running next to or under UNRWA facilities and accuses the agency of teaching hatred of Israel in its schools.

    UNRWA denies those allegations. It says it has no links to Hamas or to any other militant groups, and that it thoroughly investigates any allegations of wrongdoing and holds staff accountable. It says it shares lists of all of its staff with Israel and other host countries.

    The 12 employees are said to have participated in the surprise Oct. 7 attack in which Hamas fighters from Gaza overran Israel’s extensive border defenses. Other militants joined in the subsequent rampage through nearby communities, which left 1,200 people dead, mostly civilians. Around 250 others, including children, were captured and dragged into Gaza.

    U.N. chief Guterres said nine of the accused UNRWA employees were immediately terminated, one was confirmed dead and the other two still need to be identified. He said all would be held accountable, including through criminal prosecution.

    Neither the details of the allegations nor the evidence supporting them has been made public.

    UNRWA has condemned the Oct. 7 attack and called for all the hostages to be freed. Earlier this month, before the latest allegations, UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini announced an external review of the agency to determine which accusations are “true or untrue” and “what is politically motivated.”

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the agency should be shut down. But his government has continued to allow UNRWA to operate in the West Bank and Gaza, where it provides basic services that might otherwise be the responsibility of Israel as the occupying power. No other entity would be able to quickly fill the void if UNRWA ceased operations.

    The United States, which was the first country to suspend funding, is the biggest donor to UNRWA, providing it with $340 million in 2022. The United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Finland have also suspended aid.

    The nine countries together provided nearly 60% of UNRWA’s budget in 2022. It was not immediately clear when or how the suspension of aid would affect the agency’s day-to-day operations. Norway and Ireland said they would continue funding UNRWA, while other donors have not yet made a decision.

    The war has plunged Gaza into a severe humanitarian crisis. One in four Palestinians in the territory faces starvation, according to U.N. officials, who say aid operations are hampered by the fighting and Israeli restrictions.

    “Our humanitarian operation, on which 2 million people depend as a lifeline in Gaza, is collapsing,” Lazzarini posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.

    He expressed shock that countries would suspend aid “based on alleged behavior of a few individuals and as the war continues, needs are deepening & famine looms.”

    The war has killed more than 26,000 Palestinians, most women and children, and wounded more than 64,400 others, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. It does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its toll but says most of those killed were women and children.

    The death toll includes more than 150 UNWRA employees, the most aid workers the U.N. has lost in a single conflict.

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    Find more of AP’s coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war



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  • Displaced, repatriated and crossing borders: Afghan people make grueling journeys to survive

    Displaced, repatriated and crossing borders: Afghan people make grueling journeys to survive

    TORKHAM, Afghanistan — The barren desert plain among the mountains of eastern Afghanistan is filled with hundreds of thousands of people.

    Some live in tents. Others live out in the open, among the piles of the few belongings they managed to take as they were forced from neighboring Pakistan.

    The sprawling camp of people returning to Afghanistan through the Torkham border crossing is the latest facet of Afghans’ long, painful search for a stable home.

    More than 40 years of war, violence and poverty in Afghanistan have created one of the world’s most uprooted populations. Some 6 million Afghans are refugees outside the country. Another 3.5 million people are displaced within the country of 40 million, driven from their homes by war, earthquakes, drought or resources that are being depleted.

    Over the course of months, an Associated Press photographer traveled across Afghanistan from its eastern border with Pakistan to its western border with Iran, getting to know displaced people and returned refuges and capturing their images.

    Afghanistan is already a poor country, especially after the economic collapse that followed the takeover by the Taliban two years ago. More than 28 million people — two-thirds of the population — rely on international aid to survive.

    The displaced are among the poorest of the poor. Many live in camps around the country, unable to afford enough food or firewood for heat in the winter. Women and children often turn to begging. Others marry off their young daughters to families willing to pay them money.

    In an camp for internally displaced people outside Kabul, it was 15-year-old Shamila’s wedding day. She stood in a bright-red dress among the family’s women, who congratulated her. But the girl was miserable.

    “I have no choice. If I don’t accept, my family will be hurt,” said Shamila, whose father did not give the family’s name because he feared being identified by the Taliban. Her groom’s family is giving her father money to pay off the debts he’s had to take on to support his wife and children.

    “I wanted to study and work, I should have gone to school,” Shamila said. “I have to forget all my dreams … so at least I can help my father and my family a little and maybe I can take the burden off their shoulders.”

    Pakistan’s decision earlier this year to deport Afghans who entered illegally struck hard. Many Afghans have lived for decades in Pakistan, driven there by successive wars at home. When the order was announced, hundreds of thousands feared arrest and fled back to Afghanistan. Often Pakistani authorities prevented them from taking anything with them, they say.

    Their first stop has been the camp in Torkham, where they might spend days or weeks before Taliban officials send them to a camp elsewhere. With little food and little to protect them from the mountain cold, many in the camp are sick.

    In one corner of the camp at the foot of a mountain, 55-year-old Farooq Sadiq sat among some of his belongings, wrapped in cloth, with his wife and children on the ground beside them. Sadiq said he had been living in the Pakistani city of Peshawar for 30 years and owned a home there. Now they had nothing, not even a tent, and had been sleeping on the ground for the past eight nights.

    “I have nothing in Afghanistan, no house, no place to live, not enough money to buy a house,” he said. He hopes to settle somewhere in Afghanistan and get a visa to Pakistan so he can go sell his home there to use the money for his family.

    The expulsions from Pakistan have swelled the already large numbers of Afghans who try to migrate into Iran, hoping to find work.

    Every month, thousands cross into Iran at the border near Zaranj. It’s a risky route: In the dark of night, with the help of smugglers, they clamber over the border wall using ladders and jump down the other side.

    Mostly young men, from 12 to their 20s, use this route, planning to work in Iran and send money home to their families. Many are caught by Iranian border guards and sent back.

    The other way is longer — a drive by car for hours to Afghanistan’s southwest border, where they cross into Pakistan to make their way to its border with Iran, passing through mountains and deserts. In Pakistan, fighters from the Sunni militant group Jundallah often attack the migrants, killing or kidnapping Shiites among them.

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  • Students in Indonesia protest the growing numbers of Rohingya refugees in Aceh province

    Students in Indonesia protest the growing numbers of Rohingya refugees in Aceh province

    BANDA ACEH, Indonesia — Students in Indonesia’s Aceh province rallied on Wednesday, demanding the government drive away Rohingya refugees who have been arriving by sea in growing numbers. The protest came as police named more suspects in human trafficking of refugees.

    Over 1,500 Rohingya — who fled violent attacks in Myanmar to subsequently leave overcrowded refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh in search of a better life elsewhere — have arrived in Aceh, on the tip of the island of Sumatra, since November. They have faced some hostility from fellow Muslims in Aceh.

    About 200 students protested in front of the provincial parliament in Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh, calling on lawmakers to turn away the Rohingyas, saying their presence would bring social and economic upheaval to the community.

    “Get out Rohingya,” the protesters chanted. Many criticized the government and the U.N. refugee agency for failing to manage the refugee arrivals. Some protesters burned tires on the street.

    “We urged the parliament speaker to immediately take a firm action to remove all Rohingya refugees from Aceh,” said Teuku Wariza, one of the protest organizers.

    The protesters marched to a local community hall in Banda Aceh, where about 137 Rohingya are taking shelter. The demonstrators threw out clothes and household items belonging to the refugees, forcing authorities to relocate them to another shelter.

    Footages obtained by The Associated Press shows a large group of refugees, mostly women and children, crying and screaming as a mob, wearing university green jackets, is seen breaking through a police cordon and forcibly putting the Rohingya on the back of two trucks.

    The incident drew an outcry from human rights group and the UNHCR, which said the attack left the refugees shocked and traumatized.

    “UNHCR reminds everyone that desperate refugee children, women and men seeking shelter in Indonesia are victims of persecution and conflict, and are survivors of deadly sea journeys,” the agency said in a statement released late Wednesday.

    The statement called on local authorities to urgently act to protect the refugees and humanitarian workers.

    Indonesia had once tolerated the refugees while Thailand and Malaysia pushed them away. But the growing hostility of some Indonesians toward the Rohingya has put pressure on President Joko Widodo’s government to take action.

    Widodo earlier this month said the government suspected a surge in human trafficking for the increase in Rohingya arrivals.

    Also Wednesday, police in Banda Aceh named two more suspected human smugglers from Bangladesh and Myanmar, following the Dec. 10 arrival of another boat with refugees. One of the suspects, the boat’s captain, himself a refugee, was charged with trafficking.

    “This is not an easy issue, this is an issue with enormous challenges,” Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi told reporters.

    About 740,000 Rohingya were resettled in Bangladesh after fleeing their homes in Myanmar to escape a brutal counterinsurgency campaign carried out in 2017 by security forces. Accusations of mass rape, murder and the burning of entire villages are well documented, and international courts are considering whether Myanmar authorities committed genocide and other grave human rights abuses.

    Efforts to repatriate the Rohingya have failed because of doubts their safety can be assured. The Rohingya are largely denied citizenship rights in Buddhist-majority Myanmar and face widespread social discrimination.

    ____

    Associated Press writers Niniek Karmini and Dita Alangkara in Jakarta, Indonesia, contributed to this report.

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    Follow AP’s coverage of migration issues at https://apnews.com/hub/migration

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  • Their lives were torn apart by war in Africa. A family hopes a new US program will help them reunite

    Their lives were torn apart by war in Africa. A family hopes a new US program will help them reunite

    HASLET, Texas — Worried about his mother’s health, Jacob Mabil tried for months to persuade her to let him start the process that would take her from a sprawling refugee camp where she had spent almost a decade after fleeing violence in South Sudan.

    He wanted her to come live with him and his young family in the U.S. But before she would agree, she asked for a promise: that he would one day also bring the granddaughters she had raised since they were babies.

    Mabil, now 44, said he would do everything he could. But it turned out that he was allowed to petition only for immediate family members. Though his mom joined him in suburban Fort Worth, Texas, in 2020, his nieces remained in Africa.

    “That always killed me,” said Mabil, whose own childhood was ripped apart by civil war in Sudan.

    As the U.S. government transforms the way refugees are being resettled, Mabil and his family now have hope that they will be reunited with two of his nieces, who soon turn 18 and 19. The Biden administration opened the application process this month that lets Americans who have formed groups to privately sponsor refugees request the specific person they want to bring to the U.S.

    When he was just 8, Mabil was forced to run for his life as soldiers came into his village in what is now South Sudan, setting it on fire as they killed people. He became part of the group of children known as the “lost boys,” who spent years on their own and walked hundreds of miles to flee violence.

    Mabil, who didn’t even know his mother was alive until shortly after he arrived in the U.S. in his early 20s, said he wants his sister’s daughters to have the same opportunities that he has had.

    Traditionally, resettlement agencies have placed refugees in communities, but the push to add private sponsorship as well has come as President Joe Biden works to restore a program that was decimated under former President Donald Trump. The launch at the start of 2023 of the State Department’s Welcome Corps program, which allows everyday Americans the chance to form their own groups to privately sponsor refugees, came after a similar endeavor that let U.S. citizens sponsor Afghans or Ukrainians.

    “In many ways it is, I think, one of the most important things that the U.S. resettlement program has ever done,” said Sasha Chanoff, founder and CEO of RefugePoint, a Boston-based nonprofit that helps refugees. “It will allow families who are in desperate need to reunite to do so.”

    With the U.S. hoping to bring in 125,000 refugees this fiscal year, the use of private sponsors expands the capacity of the existing system, said Welcome Corps spokeswoman Monna Kashfi said. She added that the opportunity to apply to sponsor a specific refugee has been greatly anticipated.

    “We have heard all throughout the year from people who wanted to know … when they could submit an application to sponsor someone that they know,” she said.

    Mabil, his wife and his mother have already joined two family friends to form their own sponsor group to start the process to bring over his two nieces, who were placed in a boarding school when their grandmother left Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya for the U.S. One is set to graduate soon and the other has returned to the camp after graduating.

    Chanoff said that unaccompanied girls are often “in extraordinary danger” at the camp and regularly kidnapped and sold into marriage.

    Mabil’s wife, Akuot Leek, 33, is also from South Sudan and spent her childhood traveling from place to place with her family to try to escape violence. She wants the young women to have the same freedom that she had to choose what to do with their lives.

    Leek and Mabil began dating after meeting at a wedding in the U.S. and both are college graduates who now work in finance.

    Mabil was one of about 20,000 youths who joined an odyssey that took them first to Ethiopia, where they spent about three years before a war there forced them to flee again. The survivors eventually made it to Kakuma, where Mabil spent almost a decade before coming to the U.S.

    “They had survived bullets and bombs and wild animal attacks and things that you and I can’t imagine to get to Kakuma camp,” said Chanoff, who met Mabil at the camp.

    Leek and Mabil say that once his nieces are settled in Texas, they may work to bring over other family members.

    Mabil’s mother, Adeng Ajang, said living with her son and daughter-in-law and four grandchildren in their comfortable home has made her very happy. Now, the only stress she has in her life is worrying about her granddaughters.

    “It was difficult to leave them,” said Ajang as her daughter-in-law translated from the Dinka language. “It was hard.”

    Ajang said talks to her granddaughters on the phone often. “Sometimes we talk and then we will start to cry,” she said.

    For Mabil, he’s excited and nervous to start the process. “This is my last chance,” he said.

    ___

    Video journalist Kendria LaFleur contributed to this report.

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  • 5 more boats packed with refugees approach Indonesia's shores, air force says

    5 more boats packed with refugees approach Indonesia's shores, air force says

    BANDA ACEH, Indonesia — Indonesian authorities detected at least five boats packed tight with refugees approaching shores of Aceh province, officials said Thursday.

    The boats are the latest in a surge of vessels that have arrived in Aceh, most carrying Rohingya refugees from southern Bangladesh, where the persecuted Muslim minority fled in 2017 following attacks by the military in their homeland of Myanmar.

    Indonesia intensified patrols of its waters after a sharp rise in Rohingya refugees arriving since November, said Aceh’s Air Force Base Commander Col. Yoyon Kuscahyono. He said air patrols detected at least five boats Wednesday entering Indonesian waters, likely carrying Rohingya refugees. They were spotted entering the regencies of Lhokseumawe, East Aceh, Pidie, Aceh Besar and Sabang in north Aceh province.

    Indonesia appealed to the international community for help on Dec. 12, after more than 1,500 Rohingya refugees arrived on its shores since November.

    Muslims comprise nearly 90% of Indonesia’s 277 million people, and Indonesia once tolerated such landings while Thailand and Malaysia pushed them away. But there has been a surge of anti-Rohingya sentiment in 2023, especially in Aceh, on the northern part of the island of Sumatra, where most end up landing. Residents accuse the Rohingya of poor behavior and creating a burden, and in some cases have pushed their boats away.

    With pressure growing on President Joko Widodo’s government to take action, he said Indonesia will still help the refugees temporarily on a humanitarian basis.

    Indonesia, like Thailand and Malaysia, is not a signatory to the United Nations’ 1951 Refugee Convention outlining their legal protections, so is not obligated to accept them. However, they have so far all provided at least temporary shelter to refugees in distress.

    Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lalu Muhamad Iqbal told reporters Wednesday that the government is willing to provide temporary shelters for Rohingya refugees “to give time for international organizations that have a mandate to handle this matter, especially UNHCR, to able to carry out their obligations.”

    About 740,000 Rohingya were resettled in Bangladesh after fleeing their homes in neighboring Myanmar to escape a brutal counterinsurgency campaign carried out in 2017 by security forces. Accusations of mass rape, murder and the burning of entire villages are well documented, and international courts are considering whether Myanmar authorities committed genocide and other grave human rights abuses.

    The Muslim Rohingya are largely denied citizenship rights in Buddhist-majority Myanmar and face widespread social discrimination. Efforts to repatriate them have failed because of doubts their safety can be assured.

    Most of the refugees leaving by sea attempt to reach Muslim-majority Malaysia, east of Aceh across the Malacca Strait, in search of work.

    ___

    Associated Press journalists Andi Jatmiko and Dita Alangkara in Jakarta, Indonesia, contributed to this report.

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  • British poet and political activist Benjamin Zephaniah dies at age 65

    British poet and political activist Benjamin Zephaniah dies at age 65

    LONDON — Benjamin Zephaniah, a British poet and political activist who drew huge inspiration from his Caribbean roots, has died. He was 65.

    Zephaniah died Thursday after being diagnosed with a brain tumor eight weeks ago, his family said in a statement on Instagram.

    “We shared him with the world and we know many will be shocked and saddened by this news,” the family said.

    Zephaniah, who was born in Birmingham in central England on April 15, 1958, was a sharp-witted and often provocative presence across British media as well as performing at political gatherings and demonstrations.

    Widely recognizable from his long dreadlocks and his local accent, Zephaniah was never shy in espousing his views on racism, refugees, revolutions — and healthy eating.

    The son of Barbadian postal worker and a Jamaican nurse, Zephaniah struggled in his early years as a result of dyslexia and he was kicked out of school at the age of 13, unable to read or write, before learning to do as an adult.

    In his 20s, he traveled to London, where his first book “Pen Rhythm” was published. He would subsequently write collections focusing on particular issues, including the U.K. legal system and Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories.

    His writing was often classified as dub poetry, which emerged in Jamaica in the 1970s combining reggae beats with a hard-hitting political message. He would also perform with the group The Benjamin Zephaniah Band, and in recent years appeared on the popular BBC television drama “Peaky Blinders.”

    In 2003, Zephaniah rejected the offer to become an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, or OBE, because of its association with the British empire and its history of slavery.

    “I’ve been fighting against empire all my life, I’ve been fighting against slavery and colonialism all my life, I’ve been writing to connect with people not to impress governments and monarchy so how could I then go and accept an honor that puts the word empire onto my name,” he said. “That would be hypocritical.”

    Zephaniah was a prolific children’s poet, and was a founding member of The Black Writers’ Guild, which said it is in “mourning at the loss of a deeply valued friend and a titan of British literature.”

    In 2018, he was nominated for autobiography of the year at Britain’s National Book Awards for his work, “The Life And Rhymes Of Benjamin Zephaniah.”

    Speaking that year, Zephaniah said he believed in radical changes to society with people policing themselves.

    “I’m an anarchist, I believe this needs to be torn down, I believe we need to start again, I don’t believe that we need governments and the kind of models that we have,” he said. “But I’m also aware that we’re not going to achieve that now.”

    During his music career, Zephaniah worked with the late Irish singer Sinead O’Connor on “Empire,” and with British musician Howard Jones and drummer Trevor Morais on his album “Naked.”

    Zephaniah was also a passionate supporter and ambassador of Premier League soccer team Aston Villa, Birmingham’s most successful club.

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  • Dutch election candidates make migration a key campaign issue in the crowded Netherlands

    Dutch election candidates make migration a key campaign issue in the crowded Netherlands

    TER APEL, Netherlands — It is a familiar sight in this remote rural town: a migrant in a headscarf and thick winter coat carrying her belongings to the overcrowded reception center as a storm brews over the flat landscape.

    For many here and across this nation once known as a beacon of tolerance, it is too familiar.

    “Immigration is spiraling out of control,” Henk Tapper said while visiting his daughter in Ter Apel two weeks before the Netherlands votes in parliamentary elections on Nov. 22.

    Candidates across the political spectrum are campaigning on pledges to tackle migration problems that are crystallized in Ter Apel, just over 200 kilometers (120 miles) northeast of Amsterdam. Once mostly known for its monastery, the town has now become synonymous with Dutch struggles to accommodate large numbers of asylum-seekers.

    In the summer of 2022, hundreds of migrants were forced to sleep outside because the reception center was full. The Dutch branch of Doctors Without Borders sent a team to help the migrants, the first time it was forced to deploy within the Netherlands.

    The center still is overcrowded and locals complain of crime and public order problems blamed on migrants who wander in small groups through the village.

    It is not only asylum seekers, though. Political parties also are pledging to crack down on labor migrants and foreign students, who now make up some 40% of university enrollments.

    Tapper said he plans to vote for anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party which advocates a halt in asylum seekers and opting out of EU and United Nations agreements and treaties on refugees and asylum.

    The migration debate in the Netherlands echoes across Europe, where governments and the European Union are seeking ways to rein in migration. Italy recently announced plans to house asylum seekers in Albania.

    In Germany, the center-left government and 16 state governors have agreed on a raft of measures to curb the high number of migrants flowing into the country. They include speeding up asylum procedures and restricting benefits for asylum-seekers.

    Outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte was part of an EU delegation visiting Tunisia over the summer to hammer out a deal with the North African nation intended to combat the often lethal smuggling of migrants across the Mediterranean Sea.

    Meanwhile, many Dutch voters are calling for tougher domestic policies in this country once famed for its open-arm approach to refugees dating all the way back to the Pilgrim Fathers who lived in Leiden after fleeing religious persecution in England and before setting sail for what is now the United States.

    One of the leading candidates to succeed Rutte is herself a former refugee. Now, Dilan Yeşilgöz, leader of the center-right People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) advocates making her adopted country less welcoming.

    “Our laws, our regulations are … way more attractive than the laws and regulations of the countries around us, which makes us more attractive for people to come here,” she told The Associated Press.

    Yeşilgöz is the daughter of Turkish human rights activists who fled to the Netherlands when she was a child.

    “Being a refugee myself, I think it’s very important that … we take the decisions to make sure that true refugees have a safe place,” she said. “And politicians who refuse to take those difficult decisions they are saying to the true refugees, but also to the Dutch public: ‘You’re on your own.’”

    The vote is shaping up to be very close, with the VVD and the recently formed conservative populist party New Social Contract leading in polls against a center-left bloc of Labor and Green Left.

    According to the official Dutch statistics agency, just over 400,000 migrants arrived in the Netherlands last year — that includes asylum seekers, foreigners coming to work in the Netherlands and overseas students. The number was pushed higher by thousands of Ukrainians fleeing the war sparked by Russia’s invasion.

    Ekram Jalboutt, born to Palestinian parents in a Syrian camp, has been granted asylum in the Netherlands and doesn’t like what she sees in the debate about migration. “I hate the idea of playing with this card of migration in this political game,” she said at the headquarters of the Dutch Refugee Council, where she now works.

    The recently formed New Social Contract party wants to set a “guideline” ceiling of 50,000 migrants a year allowed into the Netherlands — including asylum seekers, labor migrants and students. Along with the VVD, it wants to introduce an asylum system that differentiates between people fleeing persecution and those fleeing war. The latter group would have fewer rights, including the right to family reunifications. Acrimonious discussions on such moves brought down the last ruling Dutch coalition in July.

    The number of new arrivals blends into another major problem Tapper highlighted— a chronic shortage of housing in this crowded nation of about 18 million people.

    “There are houses for foreigners, and Dutch people can hardly get a house … that is a bit strange here in the Netherlands,” he said.

    Advocates for cracking down on migration argue that people granted refugee status are also fast-tracked into scarce social housing and can leapfrog Dutch people who can languish for years on waiting lists.

    The Dutch Refugee Council argues that refugees make up only a small proportion of people whose applications for social housing are fast-tracked.

    “The political debate about asylum and migration is very polarized,” said Anna Strolenberg, a spokeswoman for the council. “We see most political parties proposing solutions that are too simplistic, that are not realistic, and they’re actually capitalizing on the gut feelings of people.”

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    Follow AP’s coverage of global migration at https://apnews.com/hub/migration

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  • Refugee children’s education in Rwanda under threat because of reduced UN funding

    Refugee children’s education in Rwanda under threat because of reduced UN funding

    NAIROBI, Kenya — Cuts to U.N. funding for refugees living in Rwanda is threatening the right to education for children in more than 100,000 households who have fled conflict from different East African countries to live in five camps.

    A Burundian refugee, Epimaque Nzohoraho, told The Associated Press on Thursday how his son’s boarding school administrator told him his son “should not bother coming back to school,” because UNHCR had stopped paying his fees.

    Nzohoraho doesn’t know how much the U.N. refugee agency had been paying, because funds were directly paid to the school, but he had “hoped education would save his son’s future.”

    Last weekend, UNHCR announced funding cuts to food, education, shelter and health care as hopes to meet the $90.5 million in funding requirements diminished.

    UNHCR spokesperson Lilly Carlisle said that only $33 million had been received by October, adding that “the agency cannot manage to meet the needs of the refugees.”

    Rwanda hosts 134,519 refugees — 62.20% of them have fled from neighboring Congo, 37.24% from Burundi and 0.56% from other countries, according to data from the country’s emergency management ministry.

    Among those affected is 553 refugee schoolchildren qualified to attend boarding schools this year, but won’t be able to join because of funding constraints. The UNCHR is already supporting 750 students in boarding schools, Carlisle said. The termly school fees for boarding schools in Rwanda is $80 as per government guidelines.

    Funding constraints have also hit food cash transfers, which reduced from $5 to $3 per refugee per month since last year.

    Chantal Mukabirori, a Burundian refugee living in eastern Rwanda’s Mahama camp, says with reduced food rations, her four children are going hungry and refusing to go to school.

    “Do you expect me to send children to school when I know there is no food?” Mukabirori asked.

    Carlisle is encouraging refugees to “to look for employment to support their families,” but some say this is hard to do with a refugee status.

    Solange Uwamahoro, who fled violence in Burundi in 2015 after an attempted coup, says going back to the same country where her husband was killed may be her only option.

    “I have no other option now. I could die of hunger … it’s very hard to get a job as a refugee,” Uwamahoro told the AP.

    Rwanda’s permanent secretary in the emergency management ministry, Phillipe Babinshuti, says the refugees hosted in Rwanda shouldn’t be forgotten in light of the increasing number of global conflicts and crises.

    The funding effects on education is likely to worsen school enrollment, which data from UNHCR in 2022 showed that 1.11 million of 2.17 million refugee children in the East, Horn of Africa and Great Lakes region were out of school.

    “Gross enrollment stands at 40% for pre-primary, 67% for primary, 21% for secondary and 2.1% for tertiary education. While pre-primary and primary data are in line with the global trends, secondary and tertiary enrollment rates remain much lower,” the UNHCR report read in part.

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  • Refugee children’s education in Rwanda under threat because of reduced UN funding

    Refugee children’s education in Rwanda under threat because of reduced UN funding

    NAIROBI, Kenya — Cuts to U.N. funding for refugees living in Rwanda is threatening the right to education for children in more than 100,000 households who have fled conflict from different East African countries to live in five camps.

    A Burundian refugee, Epimaque Nzohoraho, told The Associated Press on Thursday how his son’s boarding school administrator told him his son “should not bother coming back to school,” because UNHCR had stopped paying his fees.

    Nzohoraho doesn’t know how much the U.N. refugee agency had been paying, because funds were directly paid to the school, but he had “hoped education would save his son’s future.”

    Last weekend, UNHCR announced funding cuts to food, education, shelter and health care as hopes to meet the $90.5 million in funding requirements diminished.

    UNHCR spokesperson Lilly Carlisle said that only $33 million had been received by October, adding that “the agency cannot manage to meet the needs of the refugees.”

    Rwanda hosts 134,519 refugees — 62.20% of them have fled from neighboring Congo, 37.24% from Burundi and 0.56% from other countries, according to data from the country’s emergency management ministry.

    Among those affected is 553 refugee schoolchildren qualified to attend boarding schools this year, but won’t be able to join because of funding constraints. The UNCHR is already supporting 750 students in boarding schools, Carlisle said. The termly school fees for boarding schools in Rwanda is $80 as per government guidelines.

    Funding constraints have also hit food cash transfers, which reduced from $5 to $3 per refugee per month since last year.

    Chantal Mukabirori, a Burundian refugee living in eastern Rwanda’s Mahama camp, says with reduced food rations, her four children are going hungry and refusing to go to school.

    “Do you expect me to send children to school when I know there is no food?” Mukabirori asked.

    Carlisle is encouraging refugees to “to look for employment to support their families,” but some say this is hard to do with a refugee status.

    Solange Uwamahoro, who fled violence in Burundi in 2015 after an attempted coup, says going back to the same country where her husband was killed may be her only option.

    “I have no other option now. I could die of hunger … it’s very hard to get a job as a refugee,” Uwamahoro told the AP.

    Rwanda’s permanent secretary in the emergency management ministry, Phillipe Babinshuti, says the refugees hosted in Rwanda shouldn’t be forgotten in light of the increasing number of global conflicts and crises.

    The funding effects on education is likely to worsen school enrollment, which data from UNHCR in 2022 showed that 1.11 million of 2.17 million refugee children in the East, Horn of Africa and Great Lakes region were out of school.

    “Gross enrollment stands at 40% for pre-primary, 67% for primary, 21% for secondary and 2.1% for tertiary education. While pre-primary and primary data are in line with the global trends, secondary and tertiary enrollment rates remain much lower,” the UNHCR report read in part.

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  • Why Egypt and other Arab countries are unwilling to take in Palestinian refugees from Gaza

    Why Egypt and other Arab countries are unwilling to take in Palestinian refugees from Gaza

    CAIRO — As desperate Palestinians in sealed-off Gaza try to find refuge under Israel’s relentless bombardment in retaliation for Hamas’ brutal Oct. 7 attack, some ask why neighboring Egypt and Jordan don’t take them in.

    The two countries, which flank Israel on opposite sides and share borders with Gaza and the occupied West Bank, respectively, have replied with a staunch refusal. Jordan already has a large Palestinian population.

    Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi made his toughest remarks yet on Wednesday, saying the current war was not just aimed at fighting Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, “but also an attempt to push the civilian inhabitants to … migrate to Egypt.” He warned this could wreck peace in the region.

    Jordan’s King Abdullah II gave a similar message a day earlier, saying, “No refugees in Jordan, no refugees in Egypt.”

    Their refusal is rooted in fear that Israel wants to force a permanent expulsion of Palestinians into their countries and nullify Palestinian demands for statehood. El-Sissi also said a mass exodus would risk bringing militants into Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, from where they might launch attacks on Israel, endangering the two countries’ 40-year-old peace treaty.

    Here is a look at what is motivating Egypt’s and Jordan’s stances.

    A HISTORY OF DISPLACEMENT

    Displacement has been a major theme of Palestinian history. In the 1948 war around Israel’s creation, an estimated 700,000 Palestinians were expelled or fled from what is now Israel. Palestinians refer to the event as the Nakba, Arabic for “catastrophe.”

    In the 1967 Mideast war, when Israel seized the West Bank and Gaza Strip, 300,000 more Palestinians fled, mostly into Jordan.

    The refugees and their descendants now number nearly 6 million, most living in camps and communities in the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. The diaspora has spread further, with many refugees building lives in Gulf Arab countries or the West.

    After fighting stopped in the 1948 war, Israel refused to allow refugees to return to their homes. Since then, Israel has rejected Palestinian demands for a return of refugees as part of a peace deal, arguing that it would threaten the country’s Jewish majority.

    Egypt fears history will repeat itself and a large Palestinian refugee population from Gaza will end up staying for good.

    NO GUARANTEE OF RETURN

    That’s in part because there’s no clear scenario for how this war will end.

    Israel says it intends to destroy Hamas for its bloody rampage in its southern towns. But it has given no indication of what might happen afterward and who would govern Gaza. That has raised concerns that it will reoccupy the territory for a period, fueling further conflict.

    The Israeli military said Palestinians who followed its order to flee northern Gaza to the strip’s southern half would be allowed back to their homes after the war ends.

    Egypt is not reassured.

    El-Sissi said fighting could last for years if Israel argues it hasn’t sufficiently crushed militants. He proposed that Israel house Palestinians in its Negev Desert, which neighbors the Gaza Strip, until it ends its military operations.

    “Israel’s lack of clarity regarding its intentions in Gaza and the evacuation of the population is in itself problematic,” said Riccardo Fabiani, Crisis Group International’s North Africa Project Director. “This confusion fuels fears in the neighborhood.”

    Egypt has pushed for Israel to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, and Israel said Wednesday that it would, though it didn’t say when. According to United Nations, Egypt, which is dealing with a spiraling economic crisis, already hosts some 9 million refugees and migrants, including roughly 300,000 Sudanese who arrived this year after fleeing their country’s war.

    But Arab countries and many Palestinians also suspect Israel might use this opportunity to force permanent demographic changes to wreck Palestinian demands for statehood in Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem, which was also captured by Israel in 1967.

    El-Sissi repeated warnings Wednesday that an exodus from Gaza was intended to “eliminate the Palestinian cause … the most important cause of our region.” He argued that if a demilitarized Palestinian state had been created long ago in negotiations, there would not be war now.

    “All historical precedent points to the fact that when Palestinians are forced to leave Palestinian territory, they are not allowed to return back,” said H.A. Hellyer, a senior associate fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Egypt doesn’t want to be complicit in ethnic cleansing in Gaza.”

    Arab countries’ fears have only been stoked by the rise under Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of hard-right parties that talk in positive terms about removing Palestinians. Since the Hamas attack, the rhetoric has become less restrained, with some right-wing politicians and media commentators calling for the military to raze Gaza and drive out its inhabitants. One lawmaker said Israel should carry out a “new Nakba” on Gaza.

    WORRIES OVER HAMAS

    At the same time, Egypt says a mass exodus from Gaza would bring Hamas or other Palestinian militants onto its soil. That might be destabilizing in Sinai, where Egypt’s military fought for years against Islamic militants and at one point accused Hamas of backing them.

    Egypt has backed Israel’s blockade of Gaza since Hamas took over in the territory in 2007, tightly controlling the entry of materials and the passage of civilians back and forth. It also destroyed the network of tunnels under the border that Hamas and other Palestinians used to smuggle goods into Gaza.

    With the Sinai insurgency largely put down, “Cairo does not want to have a new security problem on its hands in this problematic region,” Fabiani said.

    El-Sissi warned of an even more destabilizing scenario: the wrecking of Egypt and Israel’s 1979 peace deal. He said that with the presence of Palestinian militants, Sinai “would become a base for attacks on Israel. Israel would have the right to defend itself … and would strike Egyptian territory.”

    “The peace which we have achieved would vanish from our hands,” he said, “all for the sake of the idea of eliminating the Palestinian cause.”

    ___

    For more AP coverage of the Israel-Palestinian conflict: https://apnews.com/hub/israel-palestinian-conflict

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  • Little Amal, a 12-foot puppet of a Syrian refugee, began its journey across the US in Boston

    Little Amal, a 12-foot puppet of a Syrian refugee, began its journey across the US in Boston

    Little Amal, a 12-foot puppet of a Syrian refugee, begins its journey across the United States in Boston

    ByThe Associated Press

    September 7, 2023, 7:10 PM

    Little Amal, a 12-foot puppet of a 10-year-old Syrian refugee girl, center, is greeted by a crowd, including musicians, left, while walking with the assistance of puppeteers, Thursday, Sept. 7, 2023, in Boston. The puppet is scheduled to journey across the United States, with planned stops in over 35 towns and cities, between Sept. 7 and Nov. 5, 2023, in an effort to raise awareness about refugees and displaced people across the world. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

    The Associated Press

    BOSTON — Little Amal, a 12-foot puppet of a Syrian refugee, began its journey across the United States on Thursday in Boston.

    During the trip, the puppet and its puppeteers plan to visit key places in American history to raise awareness about immigration and migration.

    The puppet of the 10-year-old girl will visit the U.S. Capitol, Boston Common, Joshua Tree National Park and the Edmund Pettus Bridge among other sites during a trek that started in Boston and ends Nov. 5 along the U.S.-Mexico border.

    Stops are also planned for Philadelphia; Baltimore; Pittsburgh; Detroit; Chicago; Atlanta; New Orleans; the Tennessee cities of Nashville and Memphis; the Texas cities of Austin, Houston, San Antonio and El Paso; and the California cities of Los Angeles and San Diego.

    On Thursday, the puppet stopped in Boston’s Chinatown neighborhood and interacted with performers in lion dance costumes.

    As the puppet walked with its puppeteers, it was accompanied by drummers and musicians and a large crowd ended up following it to the Chinatown gate.

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  • Germany will classify Georgia, Moldova as ‘safe countries,’ making rejecting asylum-seekers easier

    Germany will classify Georgia, Moldova as ‘safe countries,’ making rejecting asylum-seekers easier

    BERLIN — Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s cabinet on Wednesday classified Moldova and Georgia as so-called “safe countries of origin” meaning asylum seekers from there can be rejected and deported faster than in the past.

    The move, once parliament has approved the new regulation, is a further step in efforts to curb migration to Germany as the country struggles to house and integrate more than 1 million refugees who fled the war from Ukraine last year. Different from others fleeing to Germany, Ukrainians do not need to apply for asylum but get a right of residency immediately.

    In addition to Ukrainian war refugees, more than 188,000 people applied for asylum in Germany this year. Among those, 6,612 applications came from Georgians and 1,910 came from Moldovans during the period from January to July. However, the approval rate for asylum pleas from Georgians and Moldovans stands currently only 0.15%, the German interior ministry said.

    Despite the new regulations, Georgians and Moldovans will be able to continue to apply for asylum, but their chances of approval will be close to non-existent now. Also, the designation as a safe countries of origin shortens legal deadlines, especially for appeals to overturn negative decisions on asylum requests. An appeal has no suspensive effect, meaning people can be deporting during a pending trial.

    German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser praised the Cabinet’s decision as an important step toward channeling people who come to Germany for a better life but are not wanted.

    More than a tenth of rejected asylum applications comes from Georgia and Moldova, Faeser said.

    “So here we can effectively reduce irregular migration very quickly,” she added.

    The minister said Germany is also in the process of concluding migration agreements with Georgia and Moldova. The government has been trying to finalize migration deals with individual countries to open doors for immigrants with skills that are much needed on Germany’s labor market, such as nurses or truck drivers.

    The German government defines safe countries of origin as “countries from which it can be assumed, based on the democratic system and the general political situation, that no state persecution is to be feared there in general and that the respective state can protect against non-state persecution in principle.”

    Opposition Christian Democrats criticized the new classification as “only a drop in the ocean.”

    “In addition to extending border controls, it would also be urgently necessary to classify the Maghreb states of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia as safe countries of origin,” the parliamentary faction of the Christian Democrats said in a written statement, adding that the government had not done enough to curb migration..

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  • US sues SpaceX for alleged hiring discrimination against refugees and others

    US sues SpaceX for alleged hiring discrimination against refugees and others

    The U.S. Department of Justice has sued SpaceX, the rocket company founded and run by Elon Musk, for alleged hiring discrimination against refugees and people seeking or already granted asylum

    FILE – The U.S. Department of Justice logo is seen on a podium following a news conference in the office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland in Baltimore, March 1, 2017. On Thursday, Aug. 24, 2023, the U.S. Department of Justice filed suit against SpaceX, the rocket company founded and run by Elon Musk, for alleged hiring discrimination against refugees and people seeking or already granted asylum. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

    The Associated Press

    WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday sued SpaceX, the rocket company founded and run by Elon Musk, for alleged hiring discrimination against refugees and people seeking or already granted asylum.

    The complaint, filed in an administrative court within the department, asserts that SpaceX wrongly claimed that federal export control laws barred it from hiring anyone but U.S. citizens and permanent residents. As a result, it discouraged refugees and asylum seekers and grantees from applying for jobs at the company, according to the complaint.

    Export controls typically aim to protect U.S. national security and to further national trade objectives. They bar the shipment of specific technologies, weapons, information and software to specific non-U.S. nations and also limit the sharing or release of such items and information to “U.S. persons.” But the Justice Department noted that the term includes not only U.S. citizens, but also permanent U.S. residents, refugees, and those seeking or granted asylum.

    The department charged that SpaceX also refused to “fairly” consider applications from this group of people or to hire them. The positions in question included both ones requiring advanced degrees and others such as welders, cooks and crane operators at the company.

    The U.S. is seeking “fair consideration and back pay” for people who were deterred from or denied employment at SpaceX due to the company’s alleged discrimination, in addition to undetermined civil penalties.

    SpaceX, which is based in Hawthorne, California, did not reply to a request for comment.

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  • Mexico to set up center for third-country migrants and U.S. will take referrals for possible refuge

    Mexico to set up center for third-country migrants and U.S. will take referrals for possible refuge

    MEXICO CITY — The U.S. government announced Friday it will take referrals of Haitian, Cuban, Venezuelan and Nicaraguan citizens from Mexico for possible resettlement as refugees in the United States.

    Mexico announced earlier this week it will set up a service center offering jobs and resettlement for people from those four countries. It said the center will be on the southern border with Guatemala, but did not specify where or when it would open.

    When the U.S. government began requiring asylum seekers to apply on line or from their home countries, many of them had already begun the journey to the U.S. border and wound up up stuck in Mexico. The Mexican center is meant to serve those people.

    “We are announcing our full support for an international multipurpose space that the Government of Mexico plans to establish in southern Mexico to offer new refugee and labor options for the most vulnerable people who are currently in Mexico,” said

    U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the United States is supporting Mexico’s new center and will “accept refugee resettlement referrals from qualified individuals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela who are already in Mexico.”

    He gave no details on how the referrals would work or how many would be accepted.

    The U.S. has a new policy to grant parole for two years to up to 30,000 people a month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela if they apply online with a financial sponsor and arrive at an airport. It was not clear whether referrals accepted from Mexico would have to have a financial sponsor.

    On Wednesday, Mexico’s Foreign Relations Department said in a statement that the new center “would provide refugee services, and at the same employment options, to connect migrants with the big projects being built in the south southeast.”

    Mexico is building a tourist train line, a string of industrial parks, an oil refinery and other projects in the area.

    Mexico also has been pressing Washington to help finance two Mexican programs that it is seeking to expand to Central America. One pays farmers to plant and care for trees and the other is a system of youth job training and apprenticeships.

    Mexico said Wednesday the U.S. has agreed to contribute $40 million to that effort in El Salvador, Honduras, Belize, Guatemala, Cuba and Ecuador.

    The U.S. government has physically blocked migrants from claiming asylum at land crossings with Mexico unless they have an appointment through the CBP One app.

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