Time for action on the ‘Wall’: Trump

Crimes menace migrants, Tijuana declares crisis

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla, Nov 24, (Agencies): US President Donald Trump was back at his West Palm Beach golf course on another sunny Florida day.

Trump began his Friday on Twitter, saying Democrats and Republicans “MUST come together, finally, with a major Border Security package, which will include funding for the Wall.”

He says it’s “time for action,” even though the idea is opposed by many Democrats, who recently won control of the House.

Trump also is calling on Congress to pass criminal justice reform legislation. He says Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Democratic leader Chuck Schumer “have a real chance to do something so badly needed in our country.”

Trump initially tweeted the wrong Twitter account for Schumer, tagging a Schumer fan instead of the senator. The president corrected the error several hours later.

Meanwhile, unaccompanied minors and other vulnerable migrants risk falling victim to crime in the Mexican border city of Tijuana, where thousands of Central Americans from caravans may be stuck for months as authorities tighten up asylum rules, advocates say.

Some 4,600 migrants from the bedraggled caravans whose advance has angered US President Donald Trump are camped out with blankets and little food in an overcrowded stadium in Tijuana, whose mayor has declared a “humanitarian crisis.”

Trump has sent troops to the USMexico border, authorized the use of lethal force and threatened to shut down the frontier entirely if the migrant caravans are not stopped.

Among the Central Americans, many of whom are Hondurans fleeing violence and poverty in the struggling region, are about 80 minors between the ages of 10 and 17, according to migrants rights groups.

Josue, a 15-year-old Honduran in Tijuana, said that during a previous attempt to cross into the United States last year he was kidnapped and badly beaten in Mexico by drug traffickers claiming to be from the notorious Zetas gang.

“I ended up in the hospital, I don’t know how, because I arrived there half-dead,” he said, declining to give his second name.

when he was a lawmaker, in exchange for his assistance to the traffickers.

Maradiaga had also testified against Fabio Lobo, son of former Honduran President

Once he was well enough, authorities deported him, he said.

Reuters was not able to independently corroborate details of his story. Mexico’s immigration institute did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the case.

Tijuana was rated by Mexican think tank Seguridad Justicia y Paz as the fifth most violent city in the world in 2017, with a higher murder rate than the Central American cities from which the migrants are escaping.

Juan Manuel Gastelum, Tijuana’s mayor, said late on Thursday that the city was facing a humanitarian crisis and that supporting the migrants was costing more than 500,000 pesos ($25,000) a day. He urged international agencies to help Tijuana.

Half a dozen families who were separated at the US-Mexico border are still detained in Texas months after reuniting with their children.

Immigrant advocates say the government has violated a longstanding legal agreement that bars it from detaining children past 20 days in unlicensed facilities like the South Texas Family Residential Center.

The detention center in Dilley, Texas, had been holding about 40 families for four months following the courtordered reunifications. About 30 of the families were just released last week.

“We are still suffering because they don’t want to set us free,” said Wendy, a woman from El Salvador who arrived in the U.S. with her 9-year-old daughter in late May.

Wendy, who did not want her full name used for fear of her safety, was separated from her daughter, then reunited after nearly two months. The Associated Press spoke with her in September, and it’s not immediately clear if she’s been released yet.

Many families had spent months apart after President Donald Trump’s administration launched a zero-tolerance policy requiring anyone who crossed the border illegally to face criminal charges. That meant parents had to go to court while their kids went to shelters for underage immigrants nationwide.

The policy ended in the spring after worldwide uproar, but families with parents who failed their first screening as they sought asylum have remained in custody with their children.

Porfirio Lobo, who was sentenced to 24 years in prison for collaborating with the Los Cachiros cartel. (AFP)

Hundreds of Central American migrants staged a boisterous demonstration on the US Mexico border Thursday, screaming for President Donald Trump to let them in as US soldiers and riot police put on a menacing show of force.

The increased tension over the presence of a thousands-strong migrant caravan came as Trump marked Thanksgiving Day by threatening to close the border if he thinks Mexico has lost control of it.

Vehicle and pedestrian traffic at the busy San Ysidro crossing came to a halt for 40 minutes as dozens of US police wearing helmets and holding rifles formed a line facing the Mexican side of the frontier. Separately, riot police rehearsed deployment movements. US Customs and Border Protection called all of this a “large-scale readiness exercise.”

American soldiers in khaki-colored uniforms set off rockets that exploded with a pungent-smelling white smoke. Helicopters hovered overhead.

Trump has already deployed nearly 6,000 troops along the border and on Thursday he threatened to go even further.

“If we find that it gets to a level where we are going to lose control or where people are going to start getting hurt, we will close entry into the country for a period of time until we can get it under control,” Trump told reporters, before firing a warning to Mexico.

“The whole border. I mean the whole border,” he said, adding that “Mexico will not be able to sell their cars into the United States.”

At almost the same time as the police and troop exercise, at another nearby border crossing called El Chaparral, Central American migrants from the caravan emptying into Tijuana defied the president with a loud rally.

“Open the gates, Trump! We are not looking for war, but work,” shouted Alberto Ruiz, a 22-year-old Honduran.

After a trek of more than a month from Honduras, nearly 5,000 migrants have been living in a makeshift shelter fashioned from an open air sports arena. It rained Wednesday night, drenching their mattresses and other belongings.

“Let’s go to the border! There we can pressure Trump. We are only wasting time and strength at the shelter,” Carlos Rodriguez, also Honduran, yelled into a bullhorn.

‘Hear transgender military case’:

The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Friday to issue an unusually quick ruling on the Pentagon’s policy of restricting military service by transgender people. It’s the fourth time in recent months the administration has sought to bypass lower courts that have blocked some of its more controversial proposals and push the high court, with a conservative majority, to weigh in quickly on a divisive issue.

Earlier this month, the administration asked the high court to fast-track cases on the president’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which shields young immigrants from deportation. Administration officials also recently asked the high court to intervene to stop a trial in a climate change lawsuit and in a lawsuit over the administration’s decision to add a question on citizenship to the 2020 census.

The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, a frequent target of criticism by President Donald Trump, is involved in three of the cases. Trump’s recent salvo against the “Obama judge” who ruled against his asylum policy – not one of the issues currently before the Supreme Court – prompted Chief Justice John Roberts to fire back at the president for the first time for feeding perceptions of a biased judiciary. (AP)