Sorted by date Results 76 - 100 of 103
SAN DIEGO (AP) — U.S. Customs and Border Protection on Tuesday began testing the use of body cameras by its employees at nine locations, potentially leading to a broad rollout by the nation's largest law enforcement agency that would make it the first federal agency to use the devices on a large scale. Customs and Border Protection previously concluded in 2015 after a yearlong study that body cameras were not yet suitable for widespread use due to cost, technological challenges and the need for labor union approval. However, it said the c...
TIJUANA, Mexico (AP) — U.S. immigration lawyers are telling Central Americans in a caravan of asylum-seekers that traveled through Mexico to the border with San Diego that they face possible separation from their children and detention for many months. They say they want to prepare them for the worst possible outcome. "We are the bearers of horrible news," Los Angeles lawyer Nora Phillips said during a break from legal workshops for the migrants at three Tijuana locations where about 20 lawyers gave free information and advice. "That's what g...
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's pick to lead U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has taken himself out of the running less than six months after he was nominated, saying Monday that he will retire this summer to focus more on family. Thomas Homan, who was acting director since Trump took office, spearheaded a 40 percent surge in deportation arrests and established policies to make immigration arrests at courthouses and detain pregnant women. He has been one of the administration's most outspoken and enthusiastic advocates of its...
MEXICALI, Mexico (AP) — About 175 people in a caravan of Central American asylum-seekers rested up Thursday ahead of the final leg of their monthlong journey to seek asylum in the United States, with the Trump administration warning they could be prosecuted, detained and quickly deported. The migrants — many of them women, children and transsexuals — were set to board buses in the border city of Mexicali for a two-hour drive to Tijuana to join up with about 175 others who already arrived. Lawyers planned free workshops on the U.S. immigration s...
TIJUANA, Mexico (AP) — About 130 Central Americans, mostly women and children, have arrived at the U.S. border with Mexico in a "caravan" of asylum-seeking immigrants that has drawn the fury of President Donald Trump. Two busloads arrived late Tuesday in the Mexican border city of Tijuana at two migrant shelters just steps from one of the most fortified stretches of border separating the U.S. from Mexico. They joined another 50 or so who arrived in Tijuana over the last week or two. Four more busloads of about 200 Central Americans — mos...
SAN DIEGO (AP) — The White House on Wednesday sharply criticized a federal judge's ruling that the Trump administration must resume a program that has shielded hundreds of thousands of young immigrants from deportation. While the government has 90 days to restate its arguments before the order takes effect, presidential press secretary Sarah Huckabee characterized the ruling as "good news" for smuggling organizations and criminal networks and "horrible news for our national security." If Tuesday's ruling by U.S. District Judge John D. Bates i...
SAN DIEGO (AP) — President Donald Trump on Tuesday slammed California Gov. Jerry Brown's posture on sending National Guard troops to the Mexican border even as Brown said he was nearing agreement on joining the president's mission. The volley of words came a day after federal officials said Brown rejected a proposal for the California Guard's specific border duties, a characterization that state officials disputed. "Looks like Jerry Brown and California are not looking for safety and security along their very porous Border," Trump said in an e...
SAN DIEGO (AP) — California Gov. Jerry Brown is crystal clear that his National Guard will help President Trump go after drugs and thugs on the Mexican border, but not immigrants. Drawing that line may be hazy. Brown's pledge of 400 troops allows the president to boast that governors in all four border states back his mission to send the Guard on its third large-scale deployment since 2006. It helped bring commitments from Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas to about 2,400 troops — above the low end of Trump's target of sending 2,000 to...
SAN DIEGO (AP) — Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Friday ordered a "zero tolerance" policy aimed at people entering the United States illegally for the first time on the Mexican border. Sessions told federal prosecutors in border districts to put more emphasis on charging people with illegal entry, which has historically been treated as a misdemeanor offense for those with few or no previous encounters with border authorities. Smugglers and frequent offenders are usually charged with more serious crimes. His one-page order lacks specifics o...
SAN DIEGO (AP) — The U.S. National Guard faces a vastly different environment than it did on its last two deployments to the border with Mexico, with far fewer illegal crossings and more Central Americans than Mexicans coming. Still, its role is shaping up much the same: moving more Border Patrol agents from behind-the-scenes jobs to the front lines. President Donald Trump told reporters Thursday that he wants to send between 2,000 and 4,000 National Guard members to the U.S.-Mexico border to help federal officials fight illegal immigration a...
MENIFEE, Calif. (AP) — Just hours before she shot and wounded three people at YouTube headquarters, Nasim Aghdam calmly told police who found her sleeping in her car that she was having family problems and had left her home. During the 20-minute interview with officers early Tuesday, she did not mention being angry with YouTube or having accused the company of suppressing her video posts. She gave no indication she was a threat to herself or others. "It was a very normal conversation. There was nothing in her behavior that suggested anything u...
SAN DIEGO (AP) — The Trump administration said Thursday that it ended special considerations to generally release pregnant women charged with being in the United States illegally while their cases wind through immigration court. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it scrapped a policy that took effect in August 2016 that pregnant women should be released unless they met limited criteria that required them to be held by law, such as serious criminal histories, or if there were "extraordinary circumstances." The new policy, which t...
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — About 800 "criminals" avoided immigration arrests because Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf alerted the public to the surprise operation, an extraordinarily high number of missed targets, according to a federal official. Thomas Homan, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's acting director, told Fox News that the mayor's warning on Twitter was "beyond the pale" and compared her to a gang lookout who tells people when a police car is arriving. Homan said the Justice Department is looking into whether Schaaf obstructed j...
SAN DIEGO (AP) — A judge who was taunted by Donald Trump during the presidential campaign sided with the president Tuesday on a challenge to building a border wall with Mexico, removing what could have been a major obstacle to the signature campaign pledge. U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel rejected arguments by the state of California and advocacy groups that the administration overreached by waiving laws requiring environmental and other reviews to begin construction. Challengers said a 2005 a law that gave the Homeland Security secretary b...
SAN DIEGO (AP) — Recent assaults by tactical teams on prototypes of President Donald Trump's proposed wall with Mexico found their imposing heights should stop border crossers, The Associated Press has learned, a finding that's likely to please security hawks but raise concerns about costs and environmental damage. Military special forces based in Florida and U.S. Customs and Border Protection special units spent three weeks trying to breach and scale the eight models in San Diego, using jackhammers, saws, torches and other tools and climbing d...
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Immigration agents descended on dozens of 7-Eleven convenience stores before dawn Wednesday to begin checking on employees' immigration status in what officials described as the largest operation against an employer under Donald Trump's presidency. Agents targeted about 100 stores nationwide, broadening an investigation that began four years ago with a case against a franchisee on New York's Long Island. The audits could lead to criminal charges or fines over the stores' hiring practices. Twenty-one people suspected of b...
SAN DIEGO (AP) — The Trump administration has proposed spending $18 billion over 10 years to significantly extend the border wall with Mexico, providing one of its most detailed blueprints of how the president hopes to carry out a signature campaign pledge. The proposal by Customs and Border Protection calls for 316 miles (505 kilometers) of additional barrier by September 2027, bringing total coverage to 970 miles (1,552 kilometers), or nearly half the border, according to a U.S. official with direct knowledge of the matter. It also calls f...
SAN DIEGO (AP) — The Trump administration would consider immigration legislation that includes a pathway to citizenship for hundreds of thousands of young people, the U.S. Homeland Security secretary said Tuesday, while emphasizing no decision on that issue has been made and a border wall remains the priority. Congress is considering three options, including citizenship or permanent legal status for people who were temporarily shielded from deportation, Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said in an interview. Details on qualifying for citizenship, i...
DENVER (AP) — A man fired more than 100 rounds at sheriff's deputies in Colorado early Sunday, killing one and injuring four others, before being fatally shot himself in what authorities called an ambush. Two civilians were also injured. Douglas County Sheriff Tony Spurlock said deputies came under fire almost immediately and were shot "very, very quickly" after entering a suburban Denver apartment and trying to talk with the suspect, who was holed up inside a bedroom. "They all went down almost within seconds of each other, so it was more of a...
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown has produced a spike in detentions by deportation officers across the country during his first months in office. At the same time, arrests along the Mexican border have fallen sharply, apparently as fewer people have tried to sneak into the U.S. Figures released by the Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday show Trump is delivering on his pledge to more strictly control immigration and suggest that would-be immigrants are getting the message to not even think about crossing t...
SAN DIEGO (AP) — The last two of eight prototypes for President Donald Trump's proposed border wall took shape Thursday at a construction site in San Diego. The prototypes form a tightly packed row of imposing concrete and metal panels, including one with sharp metal edges on top. Another has a surface resembling an expensive brick driveway. Companies have until Oct. 26 to finish the models but Border Patrol spokesman Theron Francisco said the last two came into profile, with crews installing a corrugated metal surface on the eighth model on a...
HOUSTON (AP) — Immigrants came from across Houston to a Baptist church gymnasium and stacked dollies with boxes of cereal, orange juice and household necessities like cleaning bleach. For many of them, the church was the safest place to seek relief after Harvey devastated Houston and left thousands of immigrants fearful of turning to the government for help amid fears they would get deported. A similar response was seen in immigrant-heavy sections of Florida after Irma swamped the state. "We have to come together as churches to help the u...
The White House took a firm stance on Tuesday in outlining why an immigration program created by President Barack Obama needs to be eliminated. President Donald Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions described the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program as an unconstitutional action that contributed to a surge in immigration and gang violence in recent years. They also said it hurt the economy by taking jobs away from Americans. Here is a look at the claims made by the administration and the facts: TRUMP: "The temporary implementation...
HOUSTON (AP) — As a parade of motorists rolled down their windows on the edges of a Houston Home Depot parking lot offering cash, the crowd of day laborers had slowly thinned to about a dozen by mid-morning. The workers who were already gone were off to tear out soggy carpeting, carry ruined sofas to the curb and saw apart mold-infested drywall. Those who still remained knew they were hot commodities and weren't going to settle for low offers. The owner of a car dealership shook his head and drove off after his $10-an-hour proposal to clean f...
SAN DIEGO (AP) — One of the nation's largest school districts is defending its campaign to fight Islamophobia and promote understanding of Muslim culture against critics who say it is favoring a religion. Kevin Beiser, vice president of the San Diego Unified School District board, said Tuesday that the effort is modeled on a plan he advanced several years ago to protect LGBT students. He said bullying of Muslim students is pervasive and vastly underreported. "Muslim students are constantly being harassed, spit on, verbally abused, pushed, s...
