Latest news with #border
Washington Post
20 hours ago
- Politics
- Washington Post
A man opens fire on German police near the Czech border and is shot dead
BERLIN — A man was fatally shot near Germany's border with the Czech Republic after a federal police patrol stopped his car for a check and he fired at officers, police said Sunday. The shooting occurred on a road between Schirnding and Münchenreuth, just inside Germany, on Saturday afternoon. Bavarian police said the driver left his car and fired at the officers, who returned fire and fatally wounded him. He died at the scene.
Fox News
a day ago
- General
- Fox News
Texas lawmaker demands justice after Air Force cadet killed by illegal migrant suspects in hit-and-run
A Texas lawmaker is speaking out following the tragic death of an Air Force Academy cadet who was killed in a hit-and-run involving two migrant suspects in the country illegally. Texas Rep. Beth Van Duyne, who had twice personally sponsored 18-year-old Ava Moore's application to the Air Force Academy, says the incident should never have happened and is demanding accountability. "I am still livid about what happened and why it happened," Van Duyne told "Fox & Friends" Friday. The Republican congresswoman says she's been in contact with border czar Tom Homan in the wake of the accident and is committed to securing justice for the victim's family. Moore, a young cadet from Texas, was kayaking when she was allegedly struck by a jet ski operated by an illegal migrant. She was weeks away from leaving to start Air Force basic training. The Department of Homeland Security reports that the two migrants involved in the crash then fled the scene without offering help, leaving Moore to die. DHS has identified the suspects as being Daikerlyn Alejandraa Gonzalez-Gonzalez, who is said to have been driving the jet ski, and Maikel Alexander Coello-Perozo, both foreign nationals who entered the United States illegally in 2023 and were released under the Biden administration. After fleeing the scene, the suspects reportedly struck two vehicles while attempting to escape. Both were later taken into custody and ICE lodged immigration detainers to begin the removal process after criminal proceedings take place. Van Duyne described Moore as a "determined" leader and "a phenomenal woman" with a bright future ahead. She said while she is grateful the suspects have been apprehended, she believes the tragedy was avoidable. "These two Venezuelan illegal immigrants who should never have been in our country," she said, "who just recklessly were on a jet ski and smashed into Ava as she was home with her family before she was getting ready to go to boot camp." "She was out on a kayak. She got hit and they just left her there in the water to die." One of the suspects is facing a second-degree felony manslaughter charge, while the other has been charged with misdemeanors of collision involving damage to a vehicle and hindering apprehension. Van Duyne said she's been in contact with Moore's family since her death, and that her father is turning to faith during the difficult time. "I said, 'I'm so angry about what happened, I'm so angry about it,'" she recalled. "And he said, 'I'm going to stop you there. I'm not [going to] be led by anger.' This is a tremendous man of faith, of kindness, of patience, and forgiveness. And he just said that is the way that Ava would want us to remember her."
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Health
- The Guardian
US immigration authorities collecting DNA information of children in criminal database
US immigration authorities are collecting and uploading the DNA information of migrants, including children, to a national criminal database, according to government documents released earlier this month. The database includes the DNA of people who were either arrested or convicted of a crime, which law enforcement uses when seeking a match for DNA collected at a crime scene. However, most of the people whose DNA has been collected by Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), the agency that published the documents, were not listed as having been accused of any felonies. Regardless, CBP is now creating a detailed DNA profile on migrants that will be permanently searchable by law enforcement, which amounts to a 'massive expansion of genetic surveillance', one expert said. The DNA information is stored in a database managed by the FBI called the Combined DNA Index System (Codis), which is used across the country by local, state and federal law enforcement to identify suspects of crimes using their DNA data. Wired first reported the practice and the existence of these documents, and estimates there are more than 133,000 migrant teens and children whose DNA has been collected and uploaded to Codis. One of them was just four years old. 'In order to secure our borders, CBP is devoting every resource available to identify who is entering our country. We are not letting human smugglers, child sex traffickers and other criminals enter American communities,' Hilton Beckham, assistant commissioner of public affairs at CBP, told Wired in a statement. 'Toward this end, CBP collects DNA samples for submission to the FBI's Combined DNA Index System … from persons in CBP custody who are arrested on federal criminal charges, and from aliens detained under CBP's authority who are subject to fingerprinting and not otherwise exempt from the collection requirement.' Experts at Georgetown University and the Center on Privacy and Technology published a report last week that found that CBP was collecting the DNA of almost every migrant detained, regardless of how long they were detained. The agency has added more than 1.5m DNA profiles to Codis since 2020, a 5,000% increase in just three years, according to the report. It's a 'massive expansion of genetic surveillance and an unjustified invasion of privacy,' according to one of the authors of the report, Emerald Tse. 'The program reinforces harmful narratives about immigrants and intensifies existing policing practices that target immigrant communities and communities of color, making us all less safe,' Tse said in a statement. The documents CBP published, which detail each individual whose DNA was swabbed, their age and country of origin, where they were transferred to, and what they were charged with, date back to as early as 2020. The latest document published is from the first quarter of 2025. There are hundreds of thousands of entries of people whose DNA has been collected by CBP between 2020 and 2024. Of the more than 130,000 individuals who were children or teens, nearly 230 were children under the age of 13 and more than 30,000 were between 14 and 17 years old, according to Wired. CBP first launched a pilot program to begin collecting detainees' DNA data in 2020, in accordance with a Department of Justice rule that gave the agency three years to comply with a new requirement to collect genetic samples and upload it to Codis. At the time, CBP wrote that it was collecting DNA data from non-US citizens who had been detained between the ages of 14 and 79. The Department of Homeland Security and CBP policy generally states that children under 14 are not obliged to have their DNA information collected, though there is some discretion afforded to field officers. However, this pace of genetic data collection would not have been possible in a criminal legal context, according to the Center on Privacy and Technology and Georgetown report. 'Until 2020, almost all the DNA profiles in Codis's 'offender' database were added by state and local police and other criminal law enforcement agencies,' the report reads. 'In the criminal context, there are some limitations on when, how and from whom criminal law enforcement agencies can take DNA which make the process of amassing samples cumbersome and resource-intensive.' Sign up to TechScape A weekly dive in to how technology is shaping our lives after newsletter promotion The expansion was possible partly because there are fewer limitations on DNA collection within the context of immigration. 'In the immigration context, the only limitation on DNA collection is that a person must be 'detained'. But the meaning of the term 'detained' in the immigration context is notoriously broad, vague and ever shifting,' the report reads. According to the CBP website, the agency sends the DNA data directly to the FBI and does not store or maintain the DNA data itself. That genetic information is stored by the FBI indefinitely, according to the Center on Privacy and Technology and Georgetown report. 'How would it change your behavior to know that the government had a drop of your blood – or saliva – containing your 'entire genetic code, which will be kept indefinitely in a government-controlled refrigerator in a warehouse in Northern Virginia'?' the report reads, quoting CBP's documents. 'Would you feel free to seek out the medical or reproductive care you needed? To attend protests and voice dissent? To gather together with the people of your choosing?'
Washington Post
2 days ago
- Health
- Washington Post
The mysterious drop in fentanyl seizures on the U.S.-Mexico border
MEXICO CITY — After years of confiscating rising amounts of fentanyl, the opioid that has fueled the most lethal drug epidemic in American history, U.S. officials are confronting a new and puzzling reality at the Mexican border. Fentanyl seizures are plummeting. The phenomenon has received little notice in Washington, where the Trump administration has made fentanyl-trafficking cartels a national-security priority. 'Narcotics of all kinds are pouring across our borders,' said a White House statement in March, announcing stiff tariffs on Mexico and Canada.
Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Kidnapped Mexican band members and manager found dead near Texas border
Four music band members and their manager were found dead on a ranch near the border with Texas, the attorney general for the northeastern state of Tamaulipas revealed Thursday. The Grupo Fugitivo members were with their manager when they were abducted before a scheduled private event in the border city Reynosa on Sunday and were located Wednesday night. The victims were identified as band members Francisco Vázquez, 20; Víctor Garza, 21; José Morales, 23; and Nemesio Durán; 40. Livan Solís, 27, who was the group's manager and photographer. The norteño musicians, who performed at parties and local dances in the region, and their manager were abducted Sunday around 10pm while traveling in a SUV on the way to a venue where they were hired to play, according to Tamaulipas Attorney General Irving Barrios. Their bodies were found on the fringes of Reynosa. The Tamaulipas prosecutor's office also said nine suspects believed to be part of Los Metros, a faction of the Gulf Cartel, which has strong presence in Reynosa, were arrested. Cops seized two vehicles and two firearms. Authorities were not immediately able to say why the men were slain, and did not deny reports by local media that the bodies had been burned. Grupo Fugitivo performed at a private event in Riberas de Rancho Grande, a town in Reynosa, and were traveling in a black GMC to a second private booking. They made a stop at the McAllen-Reynosa International Bridge, where they posed for pictures and filmed a short video clip that were uploaded on their Facebook account at 9:54 pm and 9:55 pm. Shortly thereafter, Vázquez, Garza, Morales, Durán and Solís left in the SUV while lead singer traveled in a separate vehicle González arrived at the meeting point but did not see his bandmates and decided to return home, according to media reports. The missing SUV was located Tuesday but did not show any signs of violence. González has yet to comment on the incident. Group Fugitivo formed in 2023 and played Mexican regional music, which encapsulates a wide range of styles including corridos and cumbia - has in recent years gained a spotlight as it's entered a sort of international musical renaissance. Young artists sometimes pay homage to leaders of drug cartels, often portrayed as Robin Hood-type figures. It was not immediately clear if the group played such songs or if the artists were simply victims of rampant cartel violence that has eclipsed the city. However, other artists have faced death threats by cartels, while others have had their visas stripped by the United States under accusations by the Trump administration that they were glorifying criminal violence. The last time the musicians were heard from was the night they were kidnapped, when they told family members they were on the way to the event. After that, nothing else was heard of them. Their disappearance caused an uproar in Tamaulipas, a state long eclipsed by cartel warfare. Their families reported the disappearances, called on the public for support and people took to the streets in protest. On Wednesday, protesters blocked the international bridge connecting Reynosa and Pharr, Texas, later going to a local cathedral to pray and make offerings to the disappeared. Reynosa is a Mexican border city adjacent to the United States and has been plagued by escalating violence since 2017 due to internal disputes among groups vying for control of drug trafficking, human smuggling and fuel theft. This case follows another that occurred in 2018, when armed men kidnapped two members of the musical group 'Los Norteños de Río Bravo,' whose bodies were later found on the federal highway connecting Reynosa to Río Bravo, Tamaulipas.
