Latest news with #southernborder
The Independent
a day ago
- Health
- The Independent
PHOTO ESSAY: A Texas town's residents stay inside -- even when they need medical care
As President Donald Trump intensifies deportation activity around the country, some immigrants — including many who have lived in Texas's southern tip for decades — are unwilling to leave their homes, even for necessary medical care. 'He waited and waited because he felt the pain but was too scared to go to the hospital.' — 82-year-old Maria Isabel de Perez said of her son, whose appendix exploded earlier this year. It feels like we're living in a combat area. Even people like me who have status, I don't want to go out either, we're scared. They're looking for any excuse. If they see you have brown skin or you're Latino, they'll take you.' — Maria Gomez, a community health worker for Holy Family Services, Inc. said in Spanish, through an interpreter. People here are among the most medically needy in the country. Nearly half the population is obese. Women are more likely to be diagnosed with cervical cancer and elderly people are more likely to develop dementia. Bladder cancers can be more aggressive. One out of every four people live with diabetes. As much as a third of the population here doesn't have health insurance to cover those ailments. And a quarter of people live in poverty, more than double the national average. Now, many in this region are on a path to develop worse health outcomes as they skip doctors appointments out of fear, said Dr. Stanley Fisch, a pediatrician who helped open Driscoll Children's Hospital in the region last year. White House officials have directed federal agents to leave no location, including hospitals and churches, unchecked in their drive to remove 1 million immigrants by year's end. Those agents are even combing through one of the federal government's largest medical record databases to search for immigrants who may be in the United States illegally. Federal agents' raids began reaching deeper into everyday life across the Rio Grande Valley in June, just as the area's 1.4 million residents began their summer ritual of enduring the suffocating heat. This working-class stretch of Texas solidly backed Trump in the 2024 election, despite campaign promises to ruthlessly pursue mass deportations. People here, who once moved regularly from the U.S. to Mexico to visit relatives or get cheap dental care, say they didn't realize his deportation campaign would focus on their neighbors. It feels like we're living in a combat area. Even people like me who have status, I don't want to go out either, we're scared. They're looking for any excuse. If they see you have brown skin or you're Latino, they'll take you.' — Maria Gomez, a community health worker for Holy Family Services, Inc. said in Spanish, through an interpreter. 'Every day, I pray that the president will have a change of heart.' — Maria, a mother who is married to an American in south Texas. 'What did we do to them?' — Ofelia, a 73-year-old grandmother in Hidalgo County who is the sole caretaker of several grandchildren. This is a documentary photo story curated by AP photo editors. Text from the APNews story, As Trump's raids ramp up, a Texas region's residents stay inside — even when they need medical care, by Amanda Seitz and Jacquelyn Martin.
Fox News
2 days ago
- Politics
- Fox News
Trump's border miracle: From Biden's chaotic immigration crisis to 'all quiet' in record time
"All Quiet on the Western Front" is the title of Erich Maria Remarque's moving World War I novel. As of July 2025, it's all quiet on the U.S. southern border. How quiet? In June, the Border Patrol encountered just over 6,000 inadmissible aliens at ports of entry. Under President Joe Biden, they sometimes saw twice that many in a single day. The total number of inadmissible aliens encountered in June, at both our northern and southern borders, at or between ports of entry, was 25,243 – the lowest monthly total in U.S. history. And of all those encountered in June, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released zero - for the second month in a row. In May, DHS also released not a single alien they stopped trying to enter the United States illegally. In May 2024, in contrast, they released at least 62,000 – not counting more than 30,000 inadmissible aliens they let in every month using immigration parole, and thousands more "gotaways" who snuck in without being stopped or identified. Other than abusing parole, the Biden administration disguised the entry of millions of inadmissible aliens into our country through catch-and-release: detain them for a few hours, do cursory data entry, then move them inside where they are hard to find and deport later. Former Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas testified in December 2023 that DHS was releasing upwards of 85% of aliens caught entering illegally. That was the worst month for encounters of inadmissible aliens on the southern border in U.S. history – 251,178. That means around 213,500 were likely released – about 10 times the TOTAL number of aliens encountered last month on all our borders combined. More inadmissible, unidentified aliens were released, in one month, than the current population of Tallahassee, Florida. Making it hard for a future president to restore the rule of law was part of the plan – and now, the legacy media is doing its part by painting routine law enforcement as authoritarian excess. Under President Donald Trump, aliens entering without permission are mostly being detained pending the completion of their due immigration process – as the law explicitly requires. In some cases, that will mean an expedited removal process under the Immigration and Nationality Act. But many more will exploit our overly generous and backed-up asylum process to slow things down. Reportedly, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will no longer allow routine bond hearings for aliens to ask an immigration judge to release them pending their process. Why? Because, when detained, aliens always show up for each hearing. They want it done quickly, especially if they know they have no credible asylum case. When let loose in the country, free to work, aliens want to drag it out. Many don't show up for their immigration court dates. In Biden's term, more than half a million aliens didn't show up for their removal hearings. Detaining illegal aliens throughout their entire process means that if the result is an order for their removal (that is, deportation to their home country or another that will take them), the judge's decision can be carried out quickly and safely. If they're released into the U.S. interior, it takes time and staff to find and re-arrest them later. Speed and efficiency are in everyone's interest, and in normal times, an expedited removal case should take only a few weeks from start to finish. Asylum cases can take longer, especially with appeals, but that should still mean only months, not years. The pace has slowed in recent years due to the massive backlog caused by unchecked illegal entry and meritless asylum claims. But the Big Beautiful Bill has $170 billion to hire 300 more immigration judges and more DHS staff, increase detention capacity to 100,000, and more. Increased detention will remove incentives for aliens to make baseless claims. Trump ended catch-and-release as the default policy for inadmissible aliens. He closed the supposed "lawful pathways" of parole and government encouragement of asylum claims. He reinstated 'Remain in Mexico' and agreements with safe third countries to take deported aliens. He resumed building a wall to impede easy crossing of the border with Mexico. And Trump stopped funding the web of activist NGOs that got fat from facilitating mass illegal migration. Making it hard for a future president to restore the rule of law was part of the plan – and now, the legacy media is doing its part by painting routine law enforcement as authoritarian excess. Equally important, Trump had the fortitude to back federal agents in doing their duty. Under Biden, ICE was told to ignore most illegal immigrants – just like police are obliged by politicians to look the other way in our big cities when it comes to myriad crimes that undermine the quality of life for everyone. Now, agents are out doing their jobs, enforcing federal law. The media and some politicians are apoplectic to see that it's working. While Biden complained of invisible forces beyond his control, or asked for more money or new laws from Congress, Trump acted. He withdrew the red carpet for the world's inadmissible economic migrants, and they stopped coming. Even if most media outlets pretend to be perplexed at the relationship between policy and result, Americans can link cause and effect, and let's hope they get used to it. Then they will never allow a future president – of either party – to abandon his duties and throw open the border again.
Fox News
5 days ago
- Business
- Fox News
President Trump reveals his proudest accomplishment of his historic first 100 days
Nearing the close of his first 100 days in office, President Donald Trump touted his administration's accomplishments with tariffs and the border during an exclusive interview with Fox Noticias on Tuesday. When Fox News' Rachel Campos-Duffy asked Trump what he was most proud of since his return to office, the president first pointed to his administration's success addressing the border crisis. "I think the thing that people now realize is the border is 100%. It's like literally 100%. It's perfect now, and I don't know if you can tell. Perfect. But it's going to get better. And by the way, we want people to come in, but they have to come in legally and everybody agrees to that," Trump said. TRUMP OPEN TO SENDING VIOLENT AMERICAN CRIMINALS TO EL SALVADOR PRISONS Securing the border was one of Trump's primary campaign promises. Since his inauguration, illegal border crossings have been steadily decreasing. A new report by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) revealed that there were fewer apprehensions at the southern border in the entire month of March than there were in the first two days of the month in 2024 under the Biden administration. According to the report, this is the second consecutive month in which U.S. Border Patrol averaged its lowest daily nationwide apprehensions in history. During the Fox Noticias interview, President Trump also shared his pride over the administration's economic successes, including tariff policies. "We're making tremendous amounts of money taking in billions and billions, hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs from other countries that for many, many decades just ripped off the United States. And it's time that we not allow that to happen," he told Campos-Duffy. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Earlier this month, Trump unveiled a tariff plan on what the administration dubbed "Liberation Day." Since April 2, the administration has issued a 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs for countries willing to negotiate a trade deal while increasing the tariffs imposed on China. Trump told Campos-Duffy there are many accomplishments he is "happy" about, also pointing to Congress' work on the "Big, Beautiful Bill" which would include tax cuts and slashing regulations. Fox News Digital's Peter Pinedo contributed to this report.
New York Times
6 days ago
- Business
- New York Times
Justice Dept. to Move Ahead With Bribery Case Against Cuellar
The Justice Department is moving ahead with its bribery case against Representative Henry Cuellar after an internal debate, despite President Trump's public expressions of support for the embattled Democrat from Texas, according to three people with knowledge of the situation. The department is, however, expected to withdraw charges against Mr. Cuellar under the Foreign Agents Registration Act stemming from his business dealings with Azerbaijan and Mexican citizens in accordance with Attorney General Pam Bondi's blanket order to scale back such prosecutions under the law, those people said. In May 2024, Mr. Cuellar and his wife, Imelda, were indicted by a federal grand jury in Houston on charges of participating in a yearslong $600,000 bribery scheme involving Azerbaijan and a Mexican bank. The congressman, who, as a native of Laredo, represents a swing district on the southern border at the center of Mr. Trump's immigration push, was accused of bribery and money laundering on behalf of an oil and gas company owned by Azerbaijan's leaders. Shortly after Ms. Bondi announced in February that she would narrow enforcement of foreign lobbying and bribery laws, a lawyer for Mr. Cuellar suggested he would assess the new tack and determine whether to raise it with the department. In mid-May of this year, Matthew R. Galeotti, an assistant attorney general, told Mr. Cuellar's legal team that prosecutors in the department's criminal and national security divisions had rejected the congressman's request that the case be dismissed, according to people briefed on the exchange who requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. The dismissal request by Mr. Cuellar's lawyer, Seth D. DuCharme — the former top federal prosecutor for the Eastern District of New York — tracked closely with Mr. Trump's own legal and political strategy. He claimed that the Biden administration had weaponized the Justice Department to target Mr. Cuellar, the people familiar with the matter said. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Fox News
6 days ago
- Politics
- Fox News
Former Biden adviser admits failure to address border crisis reality led to Trump's re-election
Former Biden border adviser Blas Nuñez-Neto wrote in the New York Times on Tuesday that the administration's failure to address and act on the border crisis contributed to President Donald Trump's re-election. "The first step in responding to a crisis is to acknowledge it exists," Nuñez-Neto wrote. "The surge in illegal crossings at our southern border during the first three years of Joe Biden's presidency was, by any reasonable definition, a crisis. The failure to acknowledge this reality and take timely action to try to resolve it cost Democrats a great deal of trust with American voters and contributed to President Trump's return to the White House." Nuñez-Neto was the assistant secretary for border and immigration policy at the Department of Homeland Security under former President Joe Biden. He described experiencing "a tidal wave" of illegal entries at the border in 2021. The Biden aide said economic devastation from the Coronavirus pandemic was a factor but also acknowledged "a lack of resources" at the border and "the inability to deport people to countries like Venezuela" as issues that contributed to the numbers. "Deliberations that delayed important policy choices didn't help, either," he wrote. Nuñez-Neto added, "By the time Mr. Biden and congressional Democrats began working in earnest with Republicans in late 2023 and 2024 on revamping our immigration laws, the politics were hopelessly interwoven with the presidential election, which is why a tough, bipartisan bill ultimately foundered." Though he conceded that the border was more secure now than under Biden, Nuñez-Neto warned that this was done at the cost of "eroding our constitutional order." Instead, he argued, Congress needed to step in and provide a system that can be both generous to legal applicants and strict with people living in the United States illegally. "In other words, we need a system that recognizes that we are not only a nation of immigrants but also a nation of laws and that we need to respect both. Until that happens, the next border crisis will always be just around the corner," he concluded. Despite Nuñez-Neto's criticism of the Biden administration's border policies, his op-ed drew intense backlash online. Nuñez-Neto's former department, Homeland Security, took to X to mock him. "'I was Humpty Dumpty. Here's how to sit on a wall,'" the Homeland Security page wrote. Illegal border crossings reached record highs under Biden, with 249,785 Border Patrol apprehensions being recorded in December 2023. Under Trump, border encounters dropped by over 90% within his first few months in office.
