logo
ICE races to build migrant tent camps after $45 billion GOP funding boost, WSJ reports

ICE races to build migrant tent camps after $45 billion GOP funding boost, WSJ reports

The Star19-07-2025
(Reuters) -U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is racing to build migrant tent camps nationwide after receiving $45 billion in new funding, aiming to expand detention capacity from 40,000 to 100,000 beds by year-end, The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.
The agency is prioritizing large-scale tent facilities at military bases and ICE jails, including a 5,000-bed site at Fort Bliss in Texas and others in Colorado, Indiana, and New Jersey, the report added, citing documents seen by WSJ.
Top U.S. officials at Homeland Security, including U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, have expressed a preference for detention centers run by Republican states and local governments rather than private prison companies, the report said.
The White House and ICE did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for comment.
Noem said last week that she was in talks with five Republican-led states to build other detention sites inspired by the "Alligator Alcatraz" facility in Florida.
"We've had several other states that are actually using Alligator Alcatraz as a model for how they can partner with us," Noem told a press conference in Florida without naming any of the states.
(Reporting by Rajveer Singh Pardesi in Bengaluru; editing by Diane Craft)
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Evictions and expulsions of Muslims to Bangladesh precede Indian state polls
Evictions and expulsions of Muslims to Bangladesh precede Indian state polls

The Star

time4 minutes ago

  • The Star

Evictions and expulsions of Muslims to Bangladesh precede Indian state polls

GOALPARA, India (Reuters) -Beneath a sea of blue tarpaulin in a corner of northeastern India near Bangladesh, hundreds of Muslim men, women and babies take shelter after being evicted from their homes, in the latest crackdown in Assam ahead of state elections. They are among thousands of families whose houses have been bulldozed in the past few weeks by authorities - the most intense such action in decades - who accuse them of illegally staying on government land. The demolitions in Assam, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist party will seek reelection early next year, have coincided with a national clampdown on Bengali-speaking Muslims branded "illegal infiltrators" from Bangladesh, since the August 2024 ouster of a pro-India premier in Dhaka. "The government repeatedly harasses us," said Aran Ali, 53, speaking outside a patch of bare earth in Assam's Goalpara district that has become the makeshift home for his family of three. "We are accused of being encroachers and foreigners," said Ali, who was born in Assam, as the scorching July sun beat down on the settlement. Assam accounts for 262 km of India's 4097 km-long border with Bangladesh and has long grappled with anti-immigrant sentiments rooted in fears that Bengali migrants — both Hindus and Muslims — from the neighbouring country would overwhelm the local culture and economy. The latest clamp-down, under Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party, has been exclusively aimed at Muslims and led to protests that killed a teenager days ago. Assam's firebrand Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who is among a slew of ambitious BJP leaders accused of fomenting religious discord to stir populist sentiments ahead of polls across the country, says "Muslim infiltrators from Bangladesh" threaten India's identity. "We are fearlessly resisting the ongoing, unchecked Muslim infiltration from across the border, which has already caused an alarming demographic shift," he recently said on X. "In several districts, Hindus are now on the verge of becoming a minority in their own land." He told reporters last week that migrant Muslims make up 30% of Assam's 31 million population as of the 2011 census. "In a few years from now, Assam's minority population will be close to 50%," he said. Sarma did not respond to a Reuters request for comment. 'VULNERABLE TARGETS' The BJP has long believed Hindu-majority India to be the natural homeland for all Hindus and implemented policies to counter the country's large Muslim population. In 2019 it amended India's citizenship law to effectively naturalise undocumented non-Muslim migrants from neighbouring countries. Since he became chief minister in May 2021, Sarma's government has evicted 50,000 people — mostly Bengali Muslims — from 160 square kilometres of land, with more planned. In just the past month alone, about 3,400 Bengali Muslim homes have been bulldozed in five eviction drives across Assam, according to state data. The previous government evicted some 4,700 families in the five years to early 2021. "Bengali-speaking Muslims, regardless of their legal status, have become vulnerable targets for right-wing groups in India," said Praveen Donthi, senior analyst at International Crisis Group. Indian opposition leaders have accused Sarma of using the evictions and expulsions to polarise voters ahead of elections. "These measures are politically beneficial and profitable for the BJP," said Akhil Gogoi, an opposition lawmaker. The main opposition Congress party, whose crushing defeat in the 2016 Assam election gave the BJP its first government in the state, said it would rebuild the demolished houses and jail those who destroyed them if voted back to power. "PUSH BACKS" The surge in evictions follows a deadly attack in April on Hindu tourists in Kashmir blamed on "terrorists" from Muslim-majority Pakistan, a charge Islamabad denies. BJP-ruled states have since rounded up thousands of Bengali Muslims, calling them suspected "illegal immigrants" and a potential security risk. Analysts say worsening ties between New Delhi and Dhaka following the ouster of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina have intensified sentiments against Bengali-speaking Muslims, giving the BJP a political weapon to use for votes. Bengali is the main language of Muslim-majority Bangladesh and is also widely spoken in parts of India. States including Assam have also "pushed back" hundreds of Bengali Muslims into Bangladesh. Some were brought back because appeals challenging their non-Indian status were being heard in court, Reuters has reported. Assam officials say around 30,000 people have been declared foreigners by tribunals in the state. Such people are typically long-term residents with families and land, and activists say many of them are often wrongly classified as foreigners and are too poor to challenge tribunal judgements. New Delhi said in 2016 that around 20 million illegal Bangladeshi migrants were living in India. "The Indian government is putting thousands of vulnerable people at risk in apparent pursuit of unauthorised immigrants, but their actions reflect broader discriminatory policies against Muslims," said Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. India's foreign ministry said in May that the country had a list of 2,369 individuals to be deported to Bangladesh. It urged Bangladesh to expedite the verification process. Bangladesh's foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment. Since Hasina's removal and a rise in attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh, Sarma has frequently shared details of foiled infiltration attempts, with pictures of those caught splashed on social media. "The ethnonationalism that had long animated Assam's politics seamlessly merged with the religious nationalism of the BJP,' said Donthi. "The focus then shifted from Bengali-speaking outsiders to Bengali-speaking Muslims." (Reporting by Tora Agarwala; Editing by Krishna N. Das and Saad Sayeed)

CK Hutchison wants Chinese firm to join bidding for its US$22.8 billion ports business
CK Hutchison wants Chinese firm to join bidding for its US$22.8 billion ports business

New Straits Times

time35 minutes ago

  • New Straits Times

CK Hutchison wants Chinese firm to join bidding for its US$22.8 billion ports business

HONG KONG: CK Hutchison said on Monday it wants a major Chinese strategic investor to join the BlackRock-led consortium bidding for its US$22.8 billion ports business, after media reported that state-owned China COSCO Shipping Corp aims to join the group. The Hong Kong conglomerate in a statement said changes to the composition of the consortium and structure of the transaction will be necessary to secure regulatory approval, and that it will allow as much time as needed to achieve that. A 145-day exclusivity period for talks between the parties expired on Sunday. CK Hutchison's Hong Kong-listed shares were due to open higher just shy of one per cent on Monday. A deal would cover 43 ports in 23 countries including two ports near the Panama Canal which links the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. US President Donald Trump initially hailed the sale as "reclaiming" the Panama Canal after his administration called for the removal of what it said was Chinese ownership of some ports. US investment firm BlackRock declined to comment. COSCO, Italian consortium member MSC and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment. China views the potential sale as a threat to its interests, seeing the consortium as a proxy for growing American influence in a region it considers economically and geopolitically significant. State-backed media, in criticism of the sale, said China has significant national interests in the matter and that selling the ports would be a betrayal of the country. China's top market regulator said it was paying close attention to developments and stressed the deal would be subject to a Chinese antitrust review. CK Hutchison in its statement said any new investor must be a "significant" member of the consortium. "This is an interesting development. A PRC (China) investor with majority control of the consortium sounds like a non-starter in my view. An investor with a less than 50 per cent stake you would think should keep everyone happy," said strategist David Blennerhassett of Ballingal Investment Advisors who publishes on SmartKarma.

US-China tariff talks resume in Stockholm to extend trade truce
US-China tariff talks resume in Stockholm to extend trade truce

The Sun

time35 minutes ago

  • The Sun

US-China tariff talks resume in Stockholm to extend trade truce

STOCKHOLM: US and Chinese economic officials will hold fresh talks in Stockholm on Monday to negotiate an extension of their tariff truce, aiming to prevent a sharp escalation in trade barriers and pave the way for a potential meeting between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping later this year. The discussions follow a temporary pause in trade hostilities after May and June agreements eased tensions, but an August 12 deadline looms for a more permanent deal. Without progress, US tariffs on Chinese goods could revert to triple-digit levels, disrupting global supply chains. 'We're very close to a deal with China. We really sort of made a deal with China, but we'll see how that goes,' Trump told reporters on Sunday, hinting at cautious optimism. The Stockholm talks come shortly after the US and EU struck a major trade deal, reducing tariffs on European goods and securing large-scale US energy purchases. However, analysts expect no immediate breakthrough in US-China negotiations, predicting instead a 90-day extension of the current truce. Previous discussions in Geneva and London focused on lowering retaliatory tariffs and restoring trade in critical goods like rare earth minerals and AI chips. Yet, deeper economic disputes—such as US concerns over China's export-driven model and Beijing's objections to US tech export controls—remain unresolved. 'Geneva and London were really just about trying to get the relationship back on track so that they could, at some point, actually negotiate about the issues which animate the disagreement between the countries in the first place,' said Scott Kennedy of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. A potential Trump-Xi meeting in late October could provide momentum for further concessions. China may push for reduced US tariffs and eased tech restrictions, while the US seeks increased Chinese purchases of American goods to narrow the trade deficit, which hit $295.5 billion in 2024. - Reuters

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store