U.S. closes 2 rail crossings in Texas so agents can help process migrants
U.S. authorities temporarily shut down two railroad border crossings in Texas on Monday to shift officers to helping process migrants, drawing warnings from rail operators that the temporary closures would hamper trade ahead of Christmas.
The decision by U. S. Customs and Border Protection to suspend operations at rail crossings in Eagle Pass and El Paso adds another tension point over immigration amid a struggle in Washington between the White House and Senate negotiators to reach a deal on border security.
At the same time, Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott was preparing to sign a new law that would give police sweeping new powers to arrest migrants on illegal entry and empower local judges to order them to leave the country.
“After observing a recent resurgence of smuggling organizations moving migrants through Mexico via freight trains, CBP is taking additional actions to surge personnel and address this concerning development, including in partnership with Mexican authorities,” the agency said in a statement.
Last month, CBP also
Hundreds of people in the U.S. and Canada have been sickened and at least 10 people have died in a growing outbreak of salmonella poisoning linked to contaminated whole and pre-cut cantaloupe.
Health officials are warning consumers, retailers and restaurants not to buy, eat or serve cantaloupe if they don’t know the source.
That’s especially important for individuals who are vulnerable to serious illness from salmonella infection and those who care for them. High-risk groups include young children, people older than 65 and those with weakened immune systems.
The U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is especially concerned because many of the illnesses have been severe and because victims include people who ate cantaloupe served in childcare centers and long-term care facilities.
Here’s what we know about this outbreak:
How many people have been sickened in the cantaloupe salmonella outbreak?
Overall, at least 302 people in the U. S. and 153 in Canada have been sickened in this outbreak. That includes four killed and 129 hospitalized in the U.S. and six killed and 53 closed down one of two international bridges in Eagle Pass for the same reason. Similar actions were taken in other busy parts of the border, including Lukeville, Arizona, and San Diego.
Union Pacific said the two crossings in Texas account for 45% of its cross-border business and urged the government to reopen the locations immediately. It said each day the border is closed would halt the movement of goods on nearly 4,500 rail cars.
“There isn’t enough capacity at our other four gateways to reroute them,” hospitalized in Canada.
When did the cantaloupe outbreak begin?
The first U.S. case was a person who fell ill on Oct. 16, according to the CDC. The latest illness detected occurred on Nov. 28. Canadian health officials said people fell ill between mid-October and mid-November.
The first recalls were issued Nov. 6 in the U.S., according to the Food and Drug Administration. Multiple recalls of whole and cut fruit have followed.
Where did the cantaloupes come from?
The cantaloupes implicated in this outbreak include two brands, Malichita and Rudy, that are grown in the Sonora area of Mexico. The fruit was imported by Sofia Produce LLC, of Nogales, Arizona, which does business as TruFresh, and Pacific Trellis Fruit LLC, of Los Angeles. So far, more than 36,000 boxes or cases of cantaloupe have been recalled.
On Dec. 15, Mexican health officials temporarily closed a melon-packing plant implicated in the outbreak.
Roughly one- third of FDA- regulated human food imported into the U.S. comes from Mexico, including about 60% of fresh produce imports. The average American eats about 6 pounds of cantaloupe a year, according to the company statement.
Three months of big increases in illegal border crossings was followed in October by a 14% decrease, according to federal government data.
Throughout the weekend, senators and White House officials worked behind closed doors at the Capitol on a border security deal that Republicans in Congress are demanding in exchange for any help for Ukraine, Israel and other national security needs.
The talks also focused on removing some migrants who have already been
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athe U. S. Department of Agriculture.
How did the cantaloupes get contaminated?
Health officials in the U.S. and Canada are still investigating, but cantaloupes generally are prone to contamination because they are “netted” melons with rough, bumpy rinds that make bacteria difficult to remove.
Salmonella bacteria are found in animals’ intestines and can spread if their waste comes in contact with fruit in the field. Contamination can come from tainted water used in irrigation, or in cleaning and cooling the melons.
Poor hygienic practices of workers, pests in packing facilities and equipment that’s not cleaned and sanitized properly can also lead to contamination, the FDA says.
The Mexico growing area saw powerful storms and hurricanes in late summer and early fall that resulted in flooding that could be a factor, said Trevor Suslow, a produce safety consultant and retired professor at the University of California, Davis.
Once the melons are contaminated, the nubby rinds harbor nutrients that can help the salmonella bacteria grow, Suslow said.
If the cantaloupe become moldy or damaged, the bacteria can move from the outside of the rind to the inner layer or into the flesh. Also, when living in the U.S. without full legal status, and on ways to temporarily close the U.S.-Mexico border to some crossings if they hit a certain threshold. Arrests of migrants have topped 10,000 on some days.
“Trade is slowly coming to a standstill, and our law enforcement officers are exhausted ahead of a demoralizing holiday season that will keep them working overtime,” said Rep. Tony Gonzales, a Republican whose district includes Eagle Pass and a large swath of the Texas border. “If there were ever a time to sound the alarm, this would be it.” the fruit is sliced — in a home kitchen, grocery store or processing plant — the bacteria can spread to the flesh.
Cut fruit in a tray or clamshell package can harbor the bacteria. If the fruit isn’t kept very cool, the germs can grow.
How should consumers handle cantaloupe?
It is difficult to remove disease-causing bacteria from cantaloupe at home. Food safety experts recommend rinsing whole melons in cool water and scrubbing them with a clean produce brush and then drying completely.
Blanching the cantaloupes briefly in very hot water is another method, Suslow said. And Purdue University researchers found that household items such as vinegar and iodine diluted in water could reduce exterior contamination with salmonella by 99%.
For high-risk people, it might be best to avoid cantaloupe, especially pre-cut cantaloupe and especially during an outbreak, said Amanda Deering, a Purdue University food scientist.
Understanding that certain foods can pose a serious health risk is key, she added.
“As consumers, we just assume that our food is safe,” she said. “You don’t want to think that a cantaloupe is what’s going to take you out.”
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A former Florida sheriff’s deputy is claiming he had no legal duty to confront the gunman who murdered 17 people and wounded 17 others at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School nearly six years ago, his attorney argued Monday.
The legal team representing Broward County Deputy Scot Peterson asked a judge to dismiss the lawsuit brought by the victims’ families and survivors, even though the decision would likely be derided by the public.
Attorney Michael Piper told Circuit Judge Carol-Lisa Phillips that under the law, his client cannot be sued for anything he did or didn’t do during the Feb. 14, 2018, massacre. He cited appellate court cases that say police officers don’t have a legal obligation to protect others from third-party harm and cannot be sued for decisions they make during a crisis.
Piper said that while it might not be a popular decision, the judge must uphold the law and throw out the lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages. There are also suits filed against Broward Sheriff ’s Office and two school security guards.
Gunman Nikolas Cruz, a 25- year- old former Stoneman Douglas student, is serving a life sentence for the murders and attempted murders.
“There is a difference between legal duty and what I guess I’ll call societal expectations,” the attorney for the sheriff’s deputy argued. All the public will hear is that Peterson was in uniform and had a gun, he said, yet “When faced with this murderous rampage going on in this three-story building, he doesn’t have a duty to stop it?”
“People are outraged,” Piper said, of the notion that a law enforcement officer doesn’t have a duty. “Yes, that is exactly what we are saying. That is exactly what the law is.”
But attorney David Brill, speaking on behalf of the families, told the judge that Peterson’s actions both during and before the shooting fall outside the law’s protections because they were made in bad faith and with willful negligence. He said Peterson knew that Cruz was nicknamed “Crazy Boy” by campus security guards when he was a student two years before the shooting — and that he was considered by school staff to be the one person who could shoot up the school.
Yet, he did not have Cruz committed for mental treatment before the shooting, Brill argued. And just before the shooting — when Peterson learned
Associated Press
A 5-year-old boy living at a temporary shelter for migrants in Chicago died over the weekend after being transported to a hospital after suffering a medical emergency, the city’s mayor said Monday.
The boy’s death on Sunday revived community organizers’ complaints about conditions at shelters and questions about how Chicago is responding to an influx of people unaccustomed to the city’s cold winters and with few local contacts.
Chicago and other northern U.S. cities have struggled to find housing for tens of thousands of asylum-seekers who have been bused from Texas since the start of the year, with months of cold weather looming. Earlier this month, hundreds of asy
Cruz had been spotted back on campus carrying a bag and backpack — the deputy didn’t order an immediate lock down.
“His primary reason for being there was for the safety, health and welfare of the students and the faculty,” Brill said of Peterson. “He had a duty to protect the administration, the teachers and students to a variety of unreasonable risks, including active shooters.”
Sitting in the gallery, Peterson shook his head and grunted in disagreement during Brill’s argument. The parents of two students who were killed, 15-year-old Luke Hoyer and 18-year-old Meadow Pollack, sat down just feet behind Peterson, who later moved to the other side of the courtroom.
The hearing was ongoing Monday afternoon. Judge Phillips is not expected to immediately rule. The trial is expected to start next year, if it goes forward.
In June, Peterson was acquitted of criminal charges of child neglect. It was the first time a U.S. police officer had been charged with failing to act during a school shooting. Legal experts said the law that prosecutors applied wasn’t written to address Peterson’s actions.
Security videos played during that trial show that 36 seconds after Cruz’s attack began, Peterson exited his office about 100 yards (92 meters) from the school building and jumped into a cart with two civilian security guards who were unarmed. They arrived at the building a minute later.
Peterson got out of the cart near the east doorway to the first-floor hallway. Cruz was at the hallway’s opposite end, firing his AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle.
Peterson, who was not wearing a bullet-resistant vest, didn’t open the door. Instead, he took cover 75 feet (23 meters) away in the alcove of a neighboring building, his gun still drawn. He stayed there for 40 minutes, long after the shooting ended and other police officers had stormed the building.
For nearly three decades, Peterson worked at schools, including nine years at Stoneman Douglas. He retired shortly after the shooting and was then fired retroactively.
Cruz pleaded guilty to the shootings in 2021. In a penalty trial last year, the jury could not unanimously agree that Cruz deserved the death penalty and he was then sentenced to life in prison. Florida subsequently changed its death penalty law so that only an 8-4 vote is required for a judge to sentence a convicted murderer to death. lum-seekers still awaited placement at airports and police stations in Chicago, some of them still camped on sidewalks outside precinct buildings.
Although the city reports that police stations have been mostly cleared, massive shelters are not necessarily a safe alternative, said Annie Gomberg, a volunteer with the city’s Police Station Response Team who has been working with Chicago’s new arrivals since April. Gomberg said about 2,300 people have been staying at the shelter where the boy was living.
“The shelters are completely locked down to outside access. They’re doing this allegedly in order to protect the residents inside,” Gomberg said. But she said she suspects part of the reason for tight security is so the public cannot see how the shelters are being run.