Latest news with #USMexicoBorder
Fox News
5 hours ago
- Health
- Fox News
US government to build $8.5M fly-breeding facility to combat cattle parasite threat
The U.S. government announced plans Wednesday to build an $8.5 million fly-breeding facility near the US-Mexico border as part of an initiative to prevent a flesh-eating parasite from infesting cattle. The planned site, slated to be located at Moore Air Base in Texas, will breed millions of sterile male New World screwworm flies. The males will then be released into the wild to mate with females, preventing them from laying eggs that turn into flesh-eating larvae, the Associated Press reported. A female New World screwworm fly lays eggs in the wound of an animal. The eggs then hatch into larvae, or maggots, that burrow into the flesh, causing potentially deadly damage, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The Texas facility would be only the second of its kind in the Western Hemisphere, AP reported. Recent appearances of the fly in Mexico — as close as 700 miles from the Southern border — have raised concerns among officials. Last month, authorities responded by suspending cattle, horse and bison imports along the US-Mexico border, according to a news release from the USDA. Taking further measures, the USDA said it may also create a companion breeding center at the Texas location so that as many as 300 million flies could be produced each week. The executive department also plans to spend $21 million to convert a separate facility near Mexico's border with Guatemala into one for breeding for the fly. That site won't be ready until the end of 2026, according to AP. "The United States has defeated [New World screwworm] before, and we will do it again," U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said in a statement. "We do not take lightly the threat [New World screwworm] poses to our livestock industry, our economy and our food supply chain." The U.S. has previously bred and released New World screwworm flies into the wild, completely eradicating the insect from the country for decades. While there are treatments for infestations of the fly, officials worry about the economic impacts on farmers. Household pets and humans can also be infested by the larvae, AP reported. New World screwworm flies are endemic in Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and some South American countries, according to the USDA. "We trust the enthusiasm for cooperation that Secretary Rollins mentioned, and based on objective results and the reports from the USDA mission visiting us this week, we will be able to restart exports of our cattle as soon as possible," Mexican Agriculture Secretary Julio Berdegué said in a post on X on Wednesday. The USDA did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
The Guardian
3 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Why families separated during Trump's first term face new risks as legal aid remains in limbo
A US district judge has ordered the Trump administration to restore legal services for potentially thousands of migrant families after officials violated a historic settlement agreement that had forced the federal government to repair some of the devastating impact of the family separation scandal from the first Trump White House that sparked bipartisan uproar at the time. Judge Dana Sabraw has mandated that the executive branch resume services by an independent contractor advising parents and children who were separated during Donald Trump's 'zero tolerance' policy at the US-Mexico border in 2017 and 2018, when accounts of traumatic scenes spread around the world and a secret recording was made public of terrified, sobbing children being torn from their parents by federal agents, to be detained separately. These legal services help families apply for permission to stay in the US, having been allowed to return or remain years after they were broken up by the first Trump administration for crossing the southwest border without authorization. It is unclear when or if the federal government will comply with Sabraw's decision last week. At stake are the families' futures in the US, and even whether they will be vulnerable to Trump's current mass deportation campaign, which is now leading to similar scenes, this time across the US interior, where other children and spouses scream and sob as their family is effectively separated amid escalating immigration enforcement. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) challenged the Trump administration in court this spring over its 'sudden and unexplained termination' of contracted legal services for those covered in the 2023 settlement that had finally emerged, during the Biden administration, from the ACLU's lawsuit 'on behalf of thousands of traumatized children and parents' from Trump 1.0. That settlement provided the formerly separated families with assisted access to basic legal help, and the Biden administration complied with its requirements last year by hiring an independent contractor – the Washington DC-based Acacia Center for Justice – to run a new program, Legal Access Services for Reunified Families (LASRF). Trump then failed to renew Acacia's contract – and the court ruled breach of settlement. 'This is not a minor or technical breach. In the absence of lawyers to assist them, these children who have suffered so much at the hands of the first Trump administration will be in real danger of being separated again,' ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt said in a statement. 'This ruling will help make sure that doesn't happen.' Through LASRF, formerly separated families aren't guaranteed free, full representation. But they are given limited support that can be gamechanging. For instance, with filling out forms that could help stop them from being deported from the US, or make getting jobs possible, or reopen an immigration court case to pursue the protection they had hoped to ask for years ago when they were criminalized by Trump 1.0. However, this spring, Trump 2.0 abruptly 'federalized' the LASRF program at the suggestion of Elon Musk's so-called department of government efficiency (Doge). In practice, that meant the responsibility of orienting, informing and referring out formerly separated families to a small number of pro bono attorneys now fell to staffers at the Department of Justice's Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), which houses the immigration courts (in the executive branch of government not the judicial branch). These are the same immigration courts where people are increasingly afraid to go now, because of rampant arrests nationwide by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) in a highly unorthodox collusion between court and enforcer – as judges are allowing government attorneys to quickly dismiss potentially meritorious cases for protection, so that the administration can deport families with ease. And these are the immigration courts that will eventually adjudicate the formerly separated families' fate, even as its parent sub-agency provides legal help. In its court challenge, the ACLU had pointed out that EOIR providing these legal services itself signified 'a clear conflict'. And, in his decision, Sabraw slammed the government for failing to provide the quality and quantity of services required, ordering the Trump administration to rehire Acacia. Turnout has been low in recent weeks – three or six attenders – for virtual group orientations hosted by EOIR's version of the LASRF program, even as the sub-agency said it would primarily focus on those kinds of group services, not the individualized help that is so often necessary to successfully apply for legal relief in the US. And if families tried to look elsewhere for free legal advice, they were likely to come up short after the Trump administration defunded other programs such as immigration court help desks and detention-based legal orientation programs across the country. 'It's particularly indicative of how cruel and anti-children this administration is. You know, they seem to have no interest in a fair day in court for people, including those living with lifelong trauma caused by their [previous] policies,' said Jess Hunter-Bowman, a senior attorney at the National Immigrant Justice Center, one of the independent subcontractors that has provided services through LASRF. Thousands of families were separated at the US-Mexico border during the first Trump administration, including a Guatemalan father and his 10-year-old son in Texas. When the father – whom the Guardian is not identifying for his safety – learned he was going to be deported, his son was off playing with other kids at the detention center where they were being held. Agents had refused to let father and son say goodbye. The kid played on, oblivious as his father was chained as if he were a dangerous criminal and removed in tears, forced to leave his son behind. The boy was also eventually sent back to Guatemala. Several years later, as they were barely scraping by, they received an unexpected invitation for their family to come to the US, as part of the federal government's attempt, now under the Biden administration, to answer for family separations like theirs. Despite the previous mistreatment and trauma, the pull of the American dream remained unassailable, and in a matter of months, the father, son and their loved ones touched down stateside. Although their first days in a new country were difficult, they soon found work and community. And, when they eventually needed help with their next steps in the immigration process, they turned to a lawyer who, through LASRF, patiently guided them through complex application forms they needed to fill out in English – a language they don't speak. Because of the program, their entire family has been able to preserve humanitarian permissions and can continue to live and work legally in the US while they pursue more permanent status. 'If it hadn't been for the attorney's help,sincerely, I wouldn't have been able to do anything,' the father said. The Trump administration has not yet contacted Acacia about the ruling, which means services have not been able to resume. For good measure, judge Sabraw flayed the original 'zero tolerance' strategy at the border. 'The policy resulted in the separation of thousands of parents from their minor children, many of whom remain separated to this day,' he wrote. 'The policy caused lasting, excruciating harm to these families, and gratuitously tore the sacred bond that existed between these parents and their children.'
BBC News
3 days ago
- Politics
- BBC News
El Chapo: Lawyer Silvia Delgado who defended drug lord elected as judge
A former defence lawyer for the jailed drug lord Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán has been elected as a judge in Mexico's first-ever judicial published on Tuesday showed that Silvia Delgado had won enough votes to secure a position as a local criminal judge in the city of Ciudad Juárez, on the US-Mexico border. Her candidacy was one of the most controversial in the election held on 1 June. A leading transparency organisation accused Delgado of being one of several candidates with alleged links to organised crime on the ballot sheet, an accusation she dismissed vehemently, arguing that she had simply been doing her job by defending El Chapo. The 51-year-old lawyer was part of the defence team for El Chapo before the notorious drug lord was extradited from Mexico to the United States in leader of the Sinaloa cartel was found guilty of drug trafficking in 2019 and is serving a life sentence in a supermax prison in Colorado. In an interview with the BBC ahead of the election, Delgado argued that El Chapo was entitled to legal counsel and dismissed suggestions of a conflict of interest, should she be elected as a defended drug lord El Chapo - now, she's running for officeFollowing the publication of the voting tally on Tuesday, Delgado said she would refrain from commenting until her win had been officially confirmed. The judicial election was the first of its kind to be held in Mexico following a radical reform brought in by the governing Morena backers said electing judges - including Supreme Court justices - in a direct vote would make the judiciary more democratic and beholden to its critics argued that it undermined the independence of the was low at 13% - the lowest in any federal vote held in Mexico - which many observers said showed that there was little enthusiasm among Mexicans for choosing judges President Claudia Sheinbaum said the election had been a resounding success.
The Guardian
05-06-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Supreme court strikes down Mexican government's suit against US gunmakers
The US supreme court on Thursday spared two American gun companies from a lawsuit by Mexico's government accusing them of aiding illegal firearms trafficking to drug cartels and fueling gun violence on the south side of the US-Mexico border. The justices, in a unanimous ruling, overturned a lower court's decision that had allowed the lawsuit to proceed against firearms maker Smith & Wesson and distributor Interstate Arms. The lower court had found that Mexico plausibly alleged that the companies aided and abetted illegal gun sales, harming its government. The companies had argued for the dismissal of Mexico's suit, filed in Boston in 2021, under a 2005 US law called the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act that broadly shields gun companies from liability for crimes committed with their products. The Boston-based first circuit court of appeals decided in 2024 that the alleged conduct by the companies fell outside these protections. 'Mexico alleges that the companies aided and abetted unlawful sales routing guns to Mexican drug cartels. The question presented is whether Mexico's complaint plausibly pleads that conduct. We conclude it does not,' liberal justice Elena Kagan wrote for the supreme court on Thursday morning. The case came to the supreme court at a complicated time for US-Mexican relations as Donald Trump pursues on-again, off-again tariffs on Mexican goods imported into the US. Trump has also accused Mexico of doing too little to stop the flow of synthetic drugs such as the opioid fentanyl and migrant arrivals at the border, even though Mexico has stepped up efforts to prevent migrants from reaching the border in recent years. Mexico had claimed that the companies have deliberately maintained a distribution system that included firearms dealers who knowingly sell weapons to third-party, or 'straw', purchasers who then traffic guns to cartels in Mexico. The suit also accused the companies of unlawfully designing and marketing their guns as military-grade weapons to drive up demand among the cartels. Mexico in the lawsuit sought monetary damages of an unspecified amount and a court order requiring Smith & Wesson and Interstate Arms to take steps to 'abate and remedy the public nuisance they have created in Mexico'. Gun violence fueled by trafficked US-made firearms has contributed to a decline in business investment and economic activity in Mexico.
Associated Press
03-06-2025
- General
- Associated Press
Mexican girl is granted humanitarian parole to continue receiving lifesaving care in US, lawyers say
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A 4-year-old Mexican girl who receives lifesaving medical care from a Southern California hospital was granted permission to remain in the country weeks after federal authorities said she could be deported, her family's attorneys said Tuesday. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security granted the girl and her mother humanitarian parole for one year so she can continue to receive treatment she has been getting since arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border in 2023, according to a copy of a letter received by Rebecca Brown, an attorney for the family. An email message was sent to the Department of Homeland Security seeking comment. The decision came after the family said they were notified in April and May that their humanitarian parole was being revoked and they would be subject to potential deportation. The Trump administration has been pushing to dismantle policies from President Joe Biden's administration that granted temporary legal status for certain migrants and allowed them to live legally in the U.S., generally for two years. The girl was taken to a hospital upon arriving on at the U.S.-Mexico border with her mother in 2023 and released once she was stable enough. She receives intravenous nutrition through a special backpack for short bowel syndrome, which prevents her from being able to take in and process nutrients on her own, and lawyers said the treatment she receives is necessary at this stage for her to survive and isn't available in Mexico. Humanitarian parole, which doesn't put migrants on a path to U.S. citizenship, was widely used during the Biden administration to alleviate pressure on the U.S.-Mexico southern border. It was previously used on a case-by-case basis to address individual emergencies and also for people fleeing humanitarian crises around the world including Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos during the late 1970s. In Mexico, the girl was largely confined to a hospital because of her medical condition, according to her mother, Deysi Vargas. After joining a program at Children's Hospital Los Angeles, she can now receive treatment at home in Bakersfield, California, and go to the park and store like other children, Vargas has said. Lawyers said the girl's medical treatment, which requires 14 hours a day of intravenous nutrition, will not be necessary indefinitely but that she is not at the point where she could live without it.
