Officials: In reversal, US weighs detaining migrant families again
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is considering detaining migrant families who cross into the U.S. illegally as it prepares to end COVID-19 restrictions at the U.S.-Mexico border, according to U.S. officials familiar with the plans. That would be a reversal after officials in late 2021 stopped holding families in detention facilities.
Homeland Security officials are working through how to manage an expected increase of migrants at the border once the COVID-19 restrictions that have been in place since 2020 are lifted in May. Detention is one of several ideas under discussion and nothing has been finalized, the officials said.
If families were detained, they would be held for short periods of time, perhaps just a few days, and their cases expedited through immigration court, one official said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to comment on “rumors” that the policy was under consideration.
Under current policy, families who arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border are released into the U.S. and told to appear in immigration court at a later date. During the height of the pandemic, few families were held in custody, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials are now using those facilities to hold single adults who cross the border illegally.
But the U.S. has increasingly moved to restrict migrants as it faces record numbers of people coming to the border seeking asylum and is seeing some success at bringing down the number of migrants making a dangerous and often deadly trek.
Illegal border crossings plummeted after Biden announced Jan. 5 that Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans would be returned to Mexico if they crossed illegally. At the same time, the administration announced up to 30,000 people from those four countries could come monthly if they applied online, arrived at an airport and had a financial sponsor.
The Border Patrol stopped migrants 128,410 times on the Mexican border in January, down 42% from December, which was the highest month on record.
Federal authorities have added 25 border patrol agents at a section of the northeastern U.S. border with Quebec in response to a spike in illegal crossings.
The team, which started Monday, will help to deter human smuggling activities in the sector that includes the border areas of New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine and parts of upstate New York, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesperson said.
Statistics show that agents in the sector apprehended 1,513 illegal border crossers from Oct. 1, 2022, through Jan. 31, 2023, up from 160 in the same period the year before.
US northern border:
Missouri gun law: A Missouri law banning local police from enforcing federal gun laws is unconstitutional and void, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.
U.S. District Judge Brian Wimes ruled the 2021 law is preempted by the federal government under the U.S. Constitution’s supremacy clause.
Missouri’s Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey in a statement said he will appeal the ruling.
The Missouri law had subjected law enforcement agencies with officers who knowingly enforced federal gun laws without equivalent state laws to a fine of $50,000 per violating officer.
The Justice Department, which last year sued to overturn the Missouri law, said the Missouri state crime lab, operated by the Highway Patrol, refused to process evidence that would help federal firearms prosecutions after the law took effect.
The Missouri Information and Analysis Center, also under the Highway Patrol, stopped cooperating with federal agencies investigating federal firearms offenses. And the Highway Patrol, along with many other agencies, suspended joint efforts to enforce federal firearms laws.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin made an unannounced visit Tuesday to Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, where he vowed to continue the fight
Austin visits Iraq:
against the Islamic State group until the extremists are defeated.
Austin, whose visit came just days before the 20th anniversary of the U.S.led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein, said later that he held talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani and Defense Minister Thabet Muhammad Al-Abbasi.
Austin was greeted in Baghdad by Maj. Gen. Matthew McFarlane, the U.S. commander in Iraq, which is home to hundreds of U.S. troops helping in the fight against the Islamic State group.
U.S. health officials are alerting consumers about two more recalls of eyedrops due to contamination risks that could lead to vision problems and serious injury.
The announcements follow a recall last month of eyedrops made in India that were linked to an outbreak of drug-resistant infections. One person died and at least
Eyedrop recalls:
five others had permanent vision loss.
There’s no indication the latest recalls are related to those products.
The Food and Drug Administration posted separate recall notices for certain eyedrops distributed by Pharmedica and Apotex after the companies said they are voluntarily pulling several lots of their products from the market.
Pharmedica on Friday said it is recalling two lots of Purely Soothing 15% MSM Drops due to problems “that could result in blindness.” The drops were manufactured in Arizona.
Last week, the FDA posted a separate recall announcement from Apotex recalling six lots of prescription eyedrops used to treat a form of glaucoma. The company said it launched the recall after finding cracks in some bottle caps. The drops are distributed as Brimonidine Tartrate Ophthalmic Solution, 0.15%.
Apotex said the eyedrops were manufactured in
Canada.
Catholic Church abuse: St. John Paul II knew about sexual abuse of children by priests under his authority and sought to conceal it when he was an archbishop in his native Poland, a television news report has alleged.
In a story that aired late Monday, Polish channel TVN24 named three priests whom the future pope, then known as Archbishop Karol Wojtyla, had moved among parishes or sent to a cloister during the 1970s, including one who was sent to Austria, after they were accused of abusing minors.
Two of the priests, Eugeniusz Surgent and Jozef Loranc, eventually served short prison terms for the abuse, TVN24 said its 2 ½-year-long investigation found. Wojtyla served as archbishop of Krakow from 1964 to 1978, when he became Pope John Paul II. He died in 2005 and was declared a saint in 2014 following a fast-tracked process.